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1806 – Germany

Artillery shells boomed alongside the long guns in the darkness, a rolling undertone punctuated by the sharp cracks of muskets, pistols, and rifles. The roar of men’s voices was a discordant counterpoint to the more mechanical sounds of war, and the screams of the wounded and dying...well. Harlow did his best not to hear those.

Muzzle flashes strobed through the darkness, utterly ruining the night-sight of every soldier and officer in the vicinity and costing more than a few poor bastards limbs—or lives. Torchlight—and light from the fires inside the fort—reflected off the low-lying clouds, bathing the entire hellish scene in a yellow-brown ambient light that washed the color and definition out of the uniform jackets of the writhing mass of soldiers climbing over bodies—living and dead—to take some meaningless fort in whatever cursed corner of the continent Bonaparte thought he could attain mastery of through little more than self-declared imperialism.

Not, he reminded himself, that Boney or that fort are your problems tonight. No, Harlowe crouched at the base of a tree within spitting distance of the battle wearing a borrowed infantryman’s uniform—a soiled one, it must be said—for another reason entirely. He couldn’t trust his vision enough to see details, so if his quarry was still, waiting for the opportune moment to leave the fort, to escape with his sorry life, Harlow would never see him. That was why he had planned. All around him, in the bushes and trees and tall grass where the fighting was thinnest or nonexistent, traps were scattered. Some noose traps, some snare traps, anything that would be nonfatal. Tonight’s quarry deserved the trial and execution of a traitor; a swift death was more than Harlowe was prepared to grant him. All that was left to do now was wait, and watch for the tell-tale flash of motion in the wrong direction that would mean the hunt was on.

Harlow was a hunter. Early in his military career—the usual lot of a third son in somewhat-less-than-wealthy ton families—he had proven that his worth was not in taking orders and charging selflessly into the fray to kill or be killed. His first commanding officer had banished the young lieutenant from his regiment for masterminding what his dismissal letter had termed “deeply dishonorable conduct and trickery unbecoming of a gentleman.” That behavior had led to his squad single-handedly ensuring that nearly half a French light company and its supply train had blundered into a bog. Once they were well and truly foundered, the squad had used rifles—and one seven-barreled piquet gun—to deluge the trapped enemy soldiers in bullets. Harlow had ensured that his squad was well-hidden in the surrounding landscape, so when the French commanders—and later their NCOs, once the officers were dead—wished to surrender, they could find no one to direct their pleas to. Harlow had refused to give quarter until it was requested, even when the Frenchmen had ceased to fight back and merely cowered against the ground, behind corpses...anywhere they could.

That stunt had drawn Harlow to the attention of Colonel Cole, a hard man who was convinced that no amount of military might would be enough to defeat Bonaparte if there was not military intelligence behind it. And military intelligence required men who were perhaps less married to their honor than British officers were meant to be. Cole’s personal regiment comprised men who were involved in intelligence, unsavory warfare in general, and the hunting and removal of traitors. Harlow had excelled in this environment, moving quickly up the ranks and making friends all along the way. Ultimately, he was put in charge of his own detachment, and their first real mission had been intelligence gathering and the removal of a particularly problematic agent in Prussia, near Jena.

On a cold October day, Jena fell to Bonaparte, and Harlow very nearly fell to Jack Harker. Jack had been Harlowe’s first and closest friend in Cole’s regiment. They had planned missions together, survived training together, held each other up on campaigns, and watched each other’s backs in combat. Harlow considered Jack more of a brother than his father’s other sons had ever been. So when Jack had stepped between Harlow’s pistol and their mark in a little house in Jena, it had cut Harlow more deeply than any disproportionate cruelty his blood brothers had visited on him. The wound caused by Jack’s treason compounded when Jack and their mark had shifted, escaping and leaving Harlowe and the rest of the squad to deal with three squads of French soldiers Jack had tipped off to their presence to take them prisoner. Harlow had been the only man of them to survive that particular captivity long enough to escape.

The wounds from Jack’s treason and lies were why, just over a year later, Harlow was crouched motionless in a forest that reeked of blood, shit, and powder, simply waiting.

There.

A flicker of movement in the corner of Harlow’s eye. He made sure not to turn his head; if movement had betrayed Jack to him, it would as easily betray him to Jack. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened, waiting. He had the rhythms of the battlefield in his head, so the trick was to listen for what didn’t fit.

“Battles are like drums,” Colonel Cole was fond of saying. “They have a rhythm, they have a cadence, and you must learn to hear the syncopation. That will tell you more than any number of trumpeted signals or officer bellows. Your environment is more than simply the battle raging around you. Hearing what it will tell you will keep you alive.”

The soft but unmistakable patter of paws on dead leaves and hard-packed dirt told Harlow that his quarry was making a beeline for the forest, but about fifteen feet to his left. Directly in the path of a noose trap that should be catching any moment now...

A nearly imperceptible yip followed the slither of a rope and the flap of a released springy branch. Something that wasn’t a smile and wasn’t a snarl twisted Harlow’s lips as he faded deeper into the cover of the woods and made his way toward the abnormally large fox that was deliberately backing up to give the long end of the noose around his leg enough slack that he could loosen it with his teeth and escape.

Simple snares and nooses didn’t hold shifters for long, Harlow knew. But this one had only needed to hold for long enough.

“Hello Jack,” he hissed, grabbing the fox firmly by the scruff.

The next moment his fingers were buried in human flesh as Jack shifted back to human. Harlow flinched violently, but didn’t relax his grip.

“Been practicing, Harlow? Last time I saw someone shift in your grasp, you dropped them.” For all his unusual size as a fox, Jack was a significantly smaller man than Harlow. He wasn’t bothering to struggle.

“That would have been the last time you saw anyone on that squad. They didn’t survive. Know how they got Greg?” Jack tried for impassive, but Harlow saw the feathering in his jaw muscle and pressed on.

“That boy never reached seventeen. The second Frog bastard into the room put a bayonet in his guts and left it there. It was there while they dragged us out of the house, all through that brutal wagon ride out of Jena. The blood and the bits of gut leaking out didn’t stop them from hog-tying him either, Jack. You hear the battle sounds over there? Those screams? They’ve got nothing on how Greg screamed. But that wasn’t the worst of it, no. The worst of it came hours later, when he was dehydrated and delirious. He was still trying to scream, but he couldn’t do it. Have you ever had to listen to a kid in that much pain force air through his mouth and nose in a scratchy, gasping scream through a sandpaper throat and parched lips? By God, Jack, when Greg finally let go, sometime the next day? When we all heard his death rattle? All I felt was relieved for the boy. He wasn’t suffering anymore. Wasn’t agonizing from a belly wound that was the fault of someone he looked up to like a brother—”

Jack’s fist connected with Harlow’s jaw. Harlow let the blow land, but didn’t loosen his grip. He only stopped talking long enough to spit the blood from his mouth.

“Hitting me doesn’t bring Greg back, or any of the other men from our squad. I’m bringing you in, Jack.”

“Letting them hang me for being a shifter won’t make you feel better,” snarled Jack.

“I’m letting them hang you for being a traitor. You being a shifter just proves that England’s shifter laws are a damn good idea. Only shifters and bastards betray their country.”

“I won’t speak for the bastards, but no shifter who jumps at the chance to live in a country that doesn’t make their very existence illegal unless they take on all the suicide and dirty-work missions the crown doesn’t want to send real soldiers on can be blamed for trying!”

“You got our entire squad murdered—”

A drawling upper-class accent interrupted Harlow with, “I know I taught you both better than this.” Colonel Cole shouldered through the woods and began tying Jack’s wrists. “The fort is all but taken, Harlow. Let’s get our man back to camp and secure him. The three of us are on a ship across the channel by tomorrow morning. Parliament wants this dealt with quickly.” Cole finished restraining Jack, then met his eyes. Something sad crossed them, and the older man sighed.

“Make this simple, son. Don’t shift on us. I won’t hesitate to nail you into a crate for the duration.”

Jack didn’t respond, but any fight he might have been willing to give Harlow had been knocked out of him by their mentor’s appearance.

As Harlow followed his mentor and former best friend through the woods and back to camp, he tried to tell himself that he was finally making up for how brutally Greg—a boy who was as much as younger brother to him as he had been to Jack—and the other men under his command had died. Greg’s parched, painful cries played in his head as Harlow and Cole secured Jack in camp and did the requisite paperwork. They haunted his dreams that night, and were his constant mental companion all throughout the trip back to England. They were silenced briefly as Harlow testified at Jack’s trial, affirmed repeatedly that Jack was a shifter who had eluded the law for his entire life and that being a shifter was part of his motivation for turning traitor.

The verdict came swiftly: Guilty.

The sentence was predictable: Death.

On the morning of Jack’s execution, there was a knock at the door of Harlow’s rented room in London. Cole had offered him a suite in his London townhouse, but Harlow had declined, instead taking the sort of room enlisted men did when they were required in London. It was cheap but clean, with more than a few options for men who wanted drinks or companionship. Harlow hadn’t left the room more than he was absolutely required to.

Opening the door, he found a young page, thirteen if he was a day, dressed in the livery of Cole’s regiment. He held an official set of beribboned paperwork, and a letter.

“Colonel Cole’s compliments,” said the boy in a high voice that didn’t crack even once. “He also said for me to tell you—in these exact words, mind—to get up off the mat and not to forget your hat.”

“The damn shako makes me look like a right pudding head,” Harlow protested.

“Colonel Cole says—and again, he specifically ordered me to say this—that you’re lucky he isn’t making you wear ostrich plumes. And he says congratulations, sir!” The boy attempted a pivot that would be impressive when he grew into his feet and marched himself off.

Harlow closed the door, sank down onto the bed, and opened the small letter first.

Harlow,

Stop blaming yourself about Jack. Even the best in our line of work can be bamboozled by men with something to hide, and friendship makes murky waters all the cloudier. We still require friends, and we still have work to do.

Make me proud, son.

Yours etc.,

Cole

Postscript: Wear your medals today, and the new bars. There will be people there who will be impressed by them, and people who will understand what it took to earn them. You need to know which is which and how you can use them for the next step of your career.

Next step? wondered Harlow, opening the official set of papers. Small gold bars fell into his lap from the parcel, and he picked them up, confused. Then he looked at the papers. Effective immediately, he was promoted to the rank of provost marshal.

Even Jack’s execution was to be a lesson in gathering information and leveraging people, it seemed.

1808 – England

“Miss Euphemia Worsley,” announced the herald as the doors swished smoothly open. “Presented by Her Grace the Duchess Worsley.” The young lady’s already-pale face turned whiter than the paint on the columns of the presentation hall, and she trembled visibly as her mama gently tapped her wrist and the pair stepped out toward the thrones where Queen Charlotte and Geroge, Prince of Wales, were seated.

Portia Featherington’s fingernails pinched the flesh of Penelope’s upper arm, still sharp through Penelope’s sleeve and Portia’s glove.

“Watch, young ladies,” hissed Portia. “Miss Euphemia is considered the least graceful of this year’s debutantes, so make sure you mark every error she makes so you will avoid them when you debut in a few years.”

“I could have debuted this year,” grumbled Prudence.

“Hush, child,” scolded Lord Featherington. “When you must pay to debut three girls, you may debut them one by one instead of together.”

“I shall be an old maid by the time I debut if I am to wait for Penelope to be a reasonable age!”

“Be silent,” snapped Portia, slapping her closed fan against Prudence’s arm.

Penelope, meanwhile, had been watching Miss Euphemia’s steps grow slower the closer she got to the front of the room. Her face had transitioned from deathly white to distinctly green, and her shoulders were inching up toward her ears. The ostrich plumes on the top of her head were slowly but undeniably slipping sideways. The poor girl looked absolutely miserable, and Penelope couldn’t help but feel sorry for the older girl.

“Do you think she’s going to faint?” asked Philippa, in a tone of interest that would have been more appropriate for commenting on a particularly exotic animal in the royal menagerie.

“Quiet,” ordered Portia.

Miss Euphemia had come to something that was nearly a complete stop about three quarters of the way down the room, and Duchess Worsley was quietly and rapidly muttering to her daughter. Penelope heard “take a deep breath, my love. You can do this”; words that were undoubtedly kinder than Portia’s word would have been in the same situation. Miss Euphemia placed both hands over her stomach, closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“The chit cannot even walk the length of a room without panicking. She’ll never survive running a household,” said Portia.

Penelope wouldn’t dream of directly contradicting her mother, but it seemed that Miss Euphemia could get herself under control, because when she opened her eyes, her color was better and she managed to drop her shoulders a few inches. Shaking her head, Miss Euphemia accidentally caught Penelope’s eye. Penelope offered the older girl a small smile, and received a half-wink in return as the visible tension finished draining from Euphemia’s shoulders.

Perhaps her presentation will end better than it began, thought Penelope.

Which was when a small side door exploded open with a crack that echoed through the room, followed instantly by the baying of hunting dogs and the rough shouts of ungentle men.

The room exploded into sound as courtiers drew back against the walls to avoid the hounds. Queen Charlotte was ordering dogs to sit—and they were listening—while Prince George bellowed for his huntsman and the fellow’s assistants to control their dogs. However, what captured the room’s attention was Duchess Worsley’s screamed “Effie!” Miss Euphemia seemed to have disappeared. Then the Duchess dived for the floor and the small hedgehog that absolutely had not been there a moment before.

Lord Featherington pulled Prudence and Philippa behind him, obscuring their view of the room and ensuring that they would not be trampled. Portia had pulled Penelope to her—one arm around Penelope’s chest and the other closed around her upper arm—and backed them both against a wall. Unlike her sisters, however, Penelope had a clear view of what happened next.

“Shifter!” Bellowed a tall, hawkish man standing in the shadows behind the dais. He leapt the dais, looking like nothing so much as a highwayman from a ballad or a pirate from a story. He couldn’t have been older than thirty, but his presence was that of a much older, powerful man. Between the unfashionably loose cuts of his waistcoat, coat, and breeches; the hair that was slightly too long and queued in a style decades out of date; and the sharp planes of a cruel face, the man exuded a threatening energy that was not dispelled by how quickly his eyes darted around the room to assess the situation. Once he had fixed his attention on the clearly panicked hedgehog that was doing erratic laps of the room between running feet, he snorted once, nodded sharply, and stalked slowly forward.

His pace was deliberate, footsteps rolling smoothly from heel to ball to toe in his un-tasseled Hessians. The boots were hideously informal for court presentations, but even Charlotte—typically famous for her particularity about courtiers adhering to court dress codes—failed to object. None of the gentlemen in their flat shoes would have been able to walk so smoothly in that style without losing a shoe posthaste. He also had a range of motion from the loose cut of his garments that men in court dress rarely did, so his loose, smooth, fluid motion was an eye-catching contrast to the other courtiers in the room.

The man moved in silence, seemingly ignoring the others in the room. However, his focus and purposefulness seemed to intimidate every courtier he passed. Ladies drew back as he passed them, as did some gentlemen. The gentlemen who did not draw back alone found excuses to pull ladies—often mothers or sisters—back, and took the opportunity to put space between them and the black-garbed man. Anthony, Benedict, and Colin Bridgerton held the line, although they tucked their mother and four younger sisters behind them. The Bridgerton daughters were pale-faced but calm, in contrast to many of the screeching, sobbing girls in the room.

Penelope seemed to be seeing everything in the room at once, from overhead. The courtiers parted like the Red Sea before the man, and hedgehog Euphemia was running in smaller and smaller circles as the slow footsteps bore down on her. Duchess Worsley was trying desperately to ignore the man bearing down on her daughter, but still clearly had half a terrified eye on him as she attempted to collect her daughter. She might have had more luck on her feet, but the train of her skirts had caught in her heels and tangled about her legs, preventing her from rising even as the man drew level with her and slid his coat from his shoulders.

“No, no, no, no!”

Penelope’s heart constricted as Duke Worsley intercepted his wife’s hands before they could close around the man’s Hessian boots and hold him back.

“Peter—” she begged. Lord Worsley went to his knees, blocking his wife’s view of hedgehog Euphemia. Miss Euphemia had backed herself into a corner and gone largely still, apparently frozen. The man was barely four steps from Miss Euphemia.

Penelope suddenly felt nauseous. Miss Euphemia could have still escaped to this point, but now…if the man closed those last few steps…

Move, she begged Euphemia, silently. Please, move. Run. Don’t let him get his hands on you, please. She must have twitched or moved or something, because Portia’s nails dug into her arm, hard, just as the man halted his slow stalk and moved like lightning to toss his jacket over Miss Euphemia, bundle her into it, and stride from the room. The slam of the door was punctuated by a sob from Lady Worsley and Lord Worsley’s brokenhearted “Amelia.” It somehow managed to sound like an apology and a prayer for absolution simultaneously.

“Do you see, Penelope?” For perhaps the first time in her life, Penelope couldn’t hear any airs or arrogance in Portia’s voice. There was nothing there but seriousness and perhaps a tinge of fear. “Do you see what happens to shifters in the ton?”

Lord Worsley had gathered his still-crying wife into his arms, and from their place on the floor, his head came up and turned toward the dais. “Your Majesty, Your Highness,” he began. “That is my daughter, I beg of you—”

“We shall not hear you,” snapped the Prince of Wales, turning his attention to the red-jacketed marines who entered the room and bore down on the Worsleys.

“Please, your Majesty!” Lady Worsley’s voice was all sharp-edged desperation. “From one mother to another, please. Let me take my daughter home. We shall leave London, leave England—”

“Enough,” snapped Charlotte. “Your plea bores us. You know that there are no shifters in ton families, and all shifters belong to the crown, which graciously allows them to atone for the heinous crime of overthrowing Charles I through service in our ongoing war with the Corsican upstart.”

The marines dragged the Worsleys to their feet, facing Charlotte, who continued speaking.

“That you did not see fit to inform the crown that your house sheltered a traitor is of concern. You shall be taken into royal custody and made to answer before the court and parliament.” With a flick of her fingers, Charlotte dismissed the Worsleys and the marines hustled them from the room.

Court was then summarily dismissed, and the ton returned home to await further news. Eloise and Penelope had been forbidden from discussing the events, but that did not stop them from playing in the square out of earshot of their chaperones and talking over the events.

Duke and Duchess Worsley returned home a day or two later, having been released with massive fines in penalty for not turning their daughter over to the crown. Less than a month later, Penelope and Eloise were nearly run down by the royal coach that abruptly pulled up to the Worsley’s house and disgorged the same threatening-looking man who had taken Miss Euphemia away and a judge in robes and wig.

Penelope and Eloise had been sharply summoned back to their respective houses and not allowed out the rest of the day. Both read the notice in the paper the following day:

The Duke and Duchess of Worsley are deeply saddened to announce the death of their only daughter, Miss Euphemia Worsley. Miss Worsley was lost in service to Crown and Country, and Their Majesties, King George III and Charlotte of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, recognize her service and her role in atoning for the crimes of shifters against England.

As was standard for such announcements, no funeral date was listed. There was not even a date for a memorial, as was standard for soldiers and officers killed overseas, leaving the families without so much as a body to bury. Shifters received no formal recognition; they simply disappeared and the ton quietly pretended that they had never existed.

Less than a week after the notice, the Worsleys left England. For nearly a week, Penelope barely ate anything, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t talk to anyone about why, not even Eloise. Genuinely worried for his youngest daughter’s wellbeing, Lord Featherington took her to the market and offered her anything she wanted—a tactic that tended to pull Prudence and Philippa out of any adolescent mood they might be in. He was expecting Penelope to ask for a new dress or other article of clothing, or perhaps some sweets. She chose a beautifully crafted writing kit, with letter paper, several bottles of ink, quills, and the tools to make and maintain quills.

Lord Featherington never understood Penelope’s choice, but within twenty-four hours, his daughter was happier and more herself, so he patted himself on the back for resolving the issue—whatever that had been—and avoiding his creditors the entire day at the market.

1812 – Spain

There were bullet holes in the thin, wooden walls. The thatch had held up remarkably well in the few months of Spanish weather that the little two-room house had been abandoned. The place was empty, so either its denizens had had time to pack and leave or else it had been picked over by soldiers and refugees in the intervening time. As he lowered a green, sweating, bleeding, and barely not-screaming Daniel Smythe-Smith to the dusty, gritty floor of the house that somehow managed to be hotter than the open in Spain in July, Colin Bridgerton regretted agreeing to Jathan Postlethwaite’s Younger Sons’ Iberian Peninsula Grand Tour.

Just let us get out of this alive, and I will never cross the channel to avoid Mother and Anthony trying to marry me off again, he thought desperately.

His mother and Anthony had both tried to talk him out of walking into a literal war zone, but the appeal of spending time with a group of younger brothers—all feeling as directionless and put-upon by parents and/or older brothers has he had been of late—had been too strong a siren song for Colin to ignore. The eight younger sons had been lucky so far. Visiting the sites of previous battles and sieges—including Badajoz—had been uneventful, and they hadn’t run into either Spanish or British armed forces for the first few weeks of their trip. When Jathan got wind of a big battle that was supposed to occur at Salamanca and insisted they go to watch, Colin had argued. It was one thing to go sightseeing months or years after a battle, but there was something macabre about watching British men die for sport. They weren’t Romans, after all, to enjoy gladiatorial blood sports. Unfortunately, Jathan plied the rest of the group with drinks and they overrode Colin’s protests.

That morning they had set out for high ground above Salamanca on foot, given the rough terrain and several of the party’s truly terrible horsemanship. Generally, two of them would have had maps and compasses out to ensure that they didn’t stray into any of the areas they had been warned away from by various military officers—each of whom who had rolled their eyes in a shocking disregard for manners and propriety—they had encountered and explained their tour to. However, Jathan had insisted that he knew precisely where he was going. The only early riser in the group, none of the other gentlemen had had the energy to check his headlong chivvying out the door and leadership across unfamiliar terrain in the pre-dawn light.

By noon they had gotten well and truly turned about. The entire party was hot, sweaty, tired, and hungry, and rising tempers had led to Jathan’s headlong rush through a copse of trees that had been sheltering a French patrol. For a long moment, Jathan and the patrol had stared, dumbstruck, at each other, until the officer in charge—who Colin would later swear was fifteen if he was a day; his voice kept cracking as he shouted orders—galvanized himself, pulled a pistol from his bandolier, and took a shot at Colin, the next of the younger sons to emerge through the trees.

Surprise and the shadows among the trees saved Colin’s life. The bullet sliced along his jaw, but did no further damage.

“Run!” came a cry from behind Colin. He and Jathan both turned and did so, followed moments later by the patrol. Shots rang out as the group ran. Thankfully muskets on the move and at this range were of limited accuracy, so the first few shots flew wide and bought the group time to head for a cottage for cover. It also widened the distance between the French and the young Englishmen, since the Frenchmen had to stop to fire.

They were nearly to relatively safety when a lucky shot took Daniel Smythe-Smith’s leg out from under him. He tumbled to the ground hard, nearly tripping two of the other men. Jathan took a flying leap over his comrade, barreling into the one who has stopped, hesitant to leave their companion but equally as hesitant to move back toward the steadily advancing soldiers. Colin, who had somewhat instinctually taken up a position at the back of the pack—as he had so often done when Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth were playing chase games on the grounds at Aubrey Hall—bellowed at the others to keep running before stopping just long enough to haul Daniel upright and carried him, more by main force than anything else, through the cottage door.

Someone else slammed the door closed behind them, and for a long moment there was nothing but the sound of panting and the twirling of dust motes through the columns of sunlight streaming through the bullet holes in the walls.

“My God Dan, your leg…” began one of the men, before words turned to retching.

“In the corner,” barked Colin, wrenching his hand away from the still-bleeding graze along his jaw to focus on his friend. As one of eight rambunctious siblings, Colin was no stranger to patching up scrapes, bruises, and a myriad bumps and nicks when games turned overzealously rough. Not even the time Gregory had knocked his head against an iron railing prepared Colin for his first gunshot wound, however.

The entry wound was innocuous enough; it was a small hole that bled sluggishly but steadily. The scream when he turned Daniel’s leg over—as gently as he could—was deeply unnerving in its involuntariness. The exit wound violently turned Colin’s stomach. It was ragged, gushing blood, and looked positively gory. Colin knew enough from his prior travels to be grateful that there was an exit wound—too many men died not of the bullets themselves, but of physicians digging about inside them to extract the missiles. Daniel would not need to undergo that particular ordeal. Colin reached up and roughly yanked off his neckcloth.

“Brandy,” he ordered, hand held out but eyes still on his friend’s glassy eyes and sourly green face. A flask was placed into his hand.

“Hold him.”

One man braced Daniel’s shoulders, supporting and restraining him. Another man held his leg still.

Not wasting time they didn’t have trying to get Daniel to drink, Colin poured brandy generously over entry and exit wound. Daniel screamed again and bucked, but his friends held him still as Colin dropped the flask without bothering to cap it and firmly wrapped the cravat around Daniel’s leg. As the first knot was pulled tight, Daniel passed out, making the rest of Colin’s job easier.

“He needs a proper physician, but he shouldn’t bleed to death before we find one,” said Colin, hoping he was right.

Another man had an eye pressed to a bullet hole and spoke up. “They’re getting closer!”

That seemed to jog Jathan out of whatever stupor he had been in. “Those curs, don’t they realize we are Englishmen?” he blustered, furious.

“I would imagine that’s why they’re shooting at us,” retorted their lookout. “They’re all coming toward the front; is there a back door we can get out of?”

“Nothing,” called another man. “The front is the only way in or out. The windows in the back aren’t even large enough to crawl out of.”

“Perhaps someone ought to go out and try to speak to them,” said Jathan, paling visibly. “Not I, of course, my French is terrible…”

“Nobody is going out there to get shot,” declared Colin. “There has to be another way.”

“We can’t surrender,” said Jathan. “We are members of the ton, it is simply not done. We shall have to fight our way out.”

“With bare fists?” snapped Colin. “By all means, you first.”

“Well we cannot simply sit here!” Beads of sweat were running down Jathan’s face. He trembled, and his hands clenched and unclenched erratically. He looked as though he might take a swing at Colin.

“Stop before you come to blows!”

Colin and Jathan both swung about to face the speaker. Atherton Swift was the youngest of ten in a minor ton family that rarely left their country estate. He had been invited on the strength of his acquaintance with one of Lady Danbury’s sons more than any particular friendship with any of the other gentlemen, but he had been an excellent traveling companion and friendships had quickly formed between him and the other gentlemen.

“There is another way out of this, if you gentlemen will trust me,” said Atherton.

“I think any plan would be better than surrendering or fighting muskets with bare hands,” said Colin.

“I can go for help.”

“Pfeh,” snorted Jathan, derisively. “You must have heatstroke to think so. There is no way out of here except through the French.”

“Do not be an ass, Jathan,” snapped Colin. To Atherton, he said, “That’s a suicide mission, we cannot ask you to do that.”

“It is less dangerous for me. I just require your help being let out the back window,” insisted Atherton.

Daniel stirred and moaned, briefly silencing the conversation as all eyes flicked toward him. Colin sighed.

“Atherton, we haven’t time. It’s a noble suggestion but we must be realistic—” Colin’s mouth snapped shut as Atherton shifted, and suddenly a plump dormouse was looking expectantly at him.

“Right,” wheezed Colin, before picking up Atherton and striding over to set him on the windowsill. Atherton squeezed through a crack in the counterpane and scurried off.

“Why that no-good little rat,” hissed Jathan. “And well done Bridgerton, you’ve let the criminal escape while we are left to be shot to death by the French in Spain!” By the end of the sentence, Jathan’s voice had gone from vicious hiss to a hysterical shrill. “He’s not coming back and we are dead.”

“He has gone for help,” retorted Colin.

“He’s a shifter, he’s left us to save his own skin! They’re all vile criminals with no honor—”

“Say another word and I will hand you to the French myself,” said Colin.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Jathan went almost instinctually to answer it, but Colin grabbed his wrist, holding him back.

“It’s their officer,” said the man looking out the bullet hole. “He isn’t armed, and he has a handkerchief tied to a stick.”

“He wants to talk, at a guess,” said another man.

“Ouvre la porte, sil vous plait,” came a boyish call from the other side of the door.

“Well I shall tell him what for,” declared Jathan, yanking from Colin’s grip and throwing open the door before anyone could stop him.

The sudden opening clearly startled the young officer, he drew back in alarm with a shout, and a musket retort cracked through the heat of the afternoon. Colin yanked Jathan back into the cottage and slammed the door, listening to the rapid footfalls of the spooked young officer as he retreated back to his men.

“Anyone hit?” asked Colin.

“I…” The rose of blood blossoming on the shoulder of Jathan’s coat answered the question, and he sagged into the arms of the other gentlemen, who set him down next to a still-unconscious Daniel. One of them held another neckcloth over the entry wound to staunch the bleeding.

“What are the French doing?” Colin asked of their self-appointed lookout.  

“Milling about a bit; that officer is giving the man who fired the shot an earful. We’re in an awful position, Col. We can’t get out, and they know it. All they have to do is wait, we can’t stay in here forever.”

“We can give Atherton time to get back here,” said Colin.

“He’s not coming back, I told you—”

“Shut up, Jathan.”

As the sun moved through the sky and the afternoon wore on, the little cottage grew increasingly stifling. Within an hour, all the men were down to trousers and shirtsleeves. They were trying to ration the water in the few skins they had between them, but they continued to sweat more and more heavily, with one or two complaining of nausea and headaches. About thirty minutes after that, their lookout quietly called Colin over, and he nearly passed out on standing. Slowly and carefully he made his way over to the bullet hole in the wall.

“Problem?” he asked. The lookout drew back, gesturing for Colin to look.

The French patrol had advanced on the cottage, and arranged themselves in a semicircle around it. They were loading their muskets, and were kneeling to give themselves a more stable firing position.

Colin swore under his breath, feeling a small pang at using words that his mother would have roundly scolded him for. When was the last time she had scolded him? They had been from home for months.

“Is there any sign of Atherton?” he asked softly. The lookout shook his head. Neither man said a word as they watched the French take up their firing positions. There wasn’t anything to be said.

“Do you hear that?” Daniel’s voice was a pained rasp, but it was enough to turn Colin’s head.

“Hear what?”

“Hooves.”

“Ours or theirs?” asked Jathan, drowsily.

“Ours!” exclaimed another man, who had pulled himself up to look out the window. “I’ll be damned, it’s British cavalry!”

As willing as the young French officer had been to fire on unarmed gentlemen sheltering in an abandoned hut, he was ill-prepared to face a cavalry charge. The assault was swift and brief, and within a few moments of the thunderous cavalcade, there was silence, followed by a knock on the door and a gruff, “Are you lads alive in there?”

Colin opened the door to reveal a British cavalry officer in full uniform, horse’s reins in his hand. “Just barely, sir. We are grateful for your arrival and assistance.”

“A mouse told us you were in trouble,” the officer said. In short order Daniel and Jathan had been transferred to the custody of the company sawbones, and the rest of them had had a chance to cool off and drink their fill. Colin had yet to see Atherton, however.

The colonel himself was cagey on the subject, offering polite non-answers and generally brushing off any enquiries. Thoroughly rebuffed but refusing to let the matter lie, Colin collected some drinks and wended his way to the NCO’s fire. The sergeants were genially chatting, drinking, and cleaning their muskets, and Colin’s demeanor and gift of drinks meant he was quickly welcomed among them.

Before dark, Colin was being led across the back end of camp, to where prisoners were kept. Atherton was lying on a cot in his shirtsleeves in a tent that was too small for one person, and was positively claustrophobic when Colin slipped inside.

“Colin?” The disbelief and wariness in Atherton’s voice pinched Colin’s conscience. He should have pushed harder for information, gotten here sooner. But he was here now, and could put this right. Atherton had saved all their lives, and Colin would be damned if that good turn were not repaid in kind.

“I apologize for not finding you sooner, Atherton. Why on earth are you here?”

Atherton snorted. “You know the law, Colin. Shifters are illegal.”

“In England, yes. Not in Spain.”

“No court in England is going to argue that fine a legal point against the Lord Provost Marshal, Col. I knew what I was doing and what the risks were. Look, will you just take a letter back to my family?”

“You will take it to them yourself,” said Colin firmly. Sticking his head outside the tent, he used his best impression of Viscount Anthony Bridgerton to browbeat a guard into fetching the Lord Provost. Behind his back, the sergeant who had led him here jerked his chin at the guard, which was when the man actually went.

Retreating into the tent, Colin shot a smile at Atherton, who did not quite manage to smile back. “This is foolish, Colin. It’s not going to go anywhere, and you risk being labeled shifter-soft.”

“If you had given up this easily, we would all be dead in that hut right now. The very least I can do is try. It is the honorable thing to do, and it is the right thing to do for a friend.”

“Now what is all this rumpus?” The colonel’s voice was bombastic more than irritated, and Colin stood, pulling Atherton from the tent with him. Beside the colonel was a tall, blond, hawkish man with cool eyes that did not seem to miss anything about his surroundings.

Colin faced both uniformed men with his back straight and his tone even. “Colonel, I request the immediate release of my friend Mr. Atherton Swift.”

The colonel harrumphed uncomfortably. “On what grounds, lad? The man is an admitted shifter, and the law is very clear—”

“We are in Spain, Colonel. Spain has no such law against shifters, which I believe is part of why the army uses them here. Is this not therefore an inconsistent application of law, to arrest a shifter in a place where not only are they legal, but you yourself have taken advantage of this loophole to do the king’s work?”

Atherton’s jaw dropped as Colin—still impersonating Anthony when he was being the Viscount—spoke.

“You know he makes a fair point, Mowbray,” the colonel said to the blond uniformed man. “And we did secure a key victory today. Perhaps we can take that win and look the other way for a lad who went above and beyond to ensure his friends were safe? In the name of fair play?”

“In my experience, Colonel, releasing a shifter is a poor strategy. Every one of my acquaintance—and as you know, in my role as the Lord Provost Marshal, a significant part of my job is to oversee shifters conscripted for crown use—has ultimately proved themselves untrustworthy with treasonous impulses. Allowing this one to go free is, in my opinion, too great a risk. I would not recommend this course of action, sir.”

“Colonel,” said Colin with the charming smile of a cobra about to strike. “I imagine it will be difficult to find officers willing to take your orders and work with you if it should get about London society that this is how you reward loyalty and bravery above and beyond the call. As I am sure you know, my elder brother the Viscount Bridgerton and brother-in-law the Duke of Hastings are well-respected voices in the House of Lords and ton society, with Viscountess Bridgerton and Duchess Hastings hosting some of the most glittering events of the social season every year. I should hate for them to discourage men of good breeding from serving with you, sir.”

As Colin spoke, the colonel went red, then white, then red again, before turning to Mowbray. “I cannot have this affect my ability to staff my regiment, sir. Not to mention that Mrs. Hakesworthy would have my head if I got her cut out of society.”

“Colonel,” began Mowbray.

“No, Mowbray, enough. This, gentlemen, is what is going to happen.” The colonel surveyed the little crowd around him, making eye contact with Mowbray, Colin, and Atherton. “We shall release Mr. Swift here, and we shall not pursue him for being a shifter outside of England, as I believe is policy.”

“A policy I am working to change,” said Mowbray, through gritted teeth.

“Yes Mowbray, but we must not put intention before written law,” said the colonel. “Parliament would have a few things to say about that.”

“We appreciate your sense of honor, Colonel,” said Colin. “And I am sure that Mrs. Hakesworthy will enjoy many invitations in the seasons to come.” He made a mental note to write Anthony, Kate, Daphne, and his mother for help with said invitations.  

            “I have not finished, Mr. Bridgerton. We shall not detain Mr. Swift here, but the dispatch about his status as a shifter has already been sent to England. I cannot and will not undo that. I recommend that Mr. Swift not return to England. I promise you that Mowbray won’t be so willing to let this slide there. Now, if this unpleasantness is settled, there is a hot toddy in my tent I should like to return to. Gentlemen.” The colonel turned on his heel and strode off. Mowbray on the other hand stayed where he was, staring down Colin and Atherton until Colin clapped his friend on the shoulder and the pair retreated to Colin’s tent.

“I can’t stay here,” Atherton said, immediately.

“Where will you go?”

“I have family in Germany I can go to for a while, and then…who knows.” Colin didn’t press as he helped Atherton pack his saddlebags and then saddle his horse. He did slip a purse into one of the saddlebags without telling Atherton, though.

“I’m sorry, Atherton,” he said, once his friend was on his horse. “I didn’t intend to force you to run.”

“Colin…” Atherton raised his eyes to the sky. “So help me, if you walk around feeling guilty for ensuring that I didn’t die on a suicide mission for that madman Mowbray, I will strip down in the middle of Whitehall and shift in the midst of court. Nobody forced me to shift to run for help. And as much as I wouldn’t mind leaving Jathan to the French, Daniel didn’t deserve to die as a prisoner of war.” Atherton reached into a pocket and drew out a small packet of letters.

“It looks like I’m still going to need you to deliver some letters for me,” he said, softly.

“It’s the least I can do,” said Colin, taking the offered stack. “I’ll deliver the one for your family personally when we return.”

“There’s also one that has…special delivery instructions.” Atherton hesitated a moment, seeming reluctant to give Colin the direction for the unaddressed letter.

“Atherton, if your concern is secrecy, I swear on my family’s lives, I will not betray any confidence you give me.”  

“The final letter needs to go to Lady Whistledown.”

“The gossip columnist?” asked Colin, perplexed.

Atherton’s laugh had an edge of hysteria to it. “She’s more than just a gossip columnist, Colin. She’s…I suppose you would call her a safety net. Not even shifters know who she is—if she’s even a she—but thanks to her, we can get messages out to the shifters in the ton quickly. I hadn’t heard a word about Mowbray trying to get parliament to make it legal to arrest British shifters outside Britain, but if that truly is the case, others need to know.”

“How do I find Lady Whistledown to deliver the letter? Not even the queen can find her, despite some of the more pointed things she’s published about the crown.”

“You don’t find Lady Whistledown. You take this letter to the church on Fleet Street in London and you leave it under the loose flagstone at the center of the sixth pew from the door. And then you forget everything you know about this, Colin. I’ve warned Lady Whistledown in the letter that I’ve told a non-shifter about this dead drop and to stop using it. She’ll tell everyone that as well as about Mowbray.”

“Will you write me when you’re settled with your family?”

Atherton smiled, a little sadly. “I will if you wish, but I won’t expect a response. You don’t want Mowbray sniffing around your family, Colin. He’s ruthless, and he’s forced more than one shifter to reveal themselves by staging accidents for their families.”

“Is there anyone in your family you want me to warn to run?”

“I’m not answering that question. I have to go, but Colin…thank you.”

The two men clasped hands. Then Atherton rode off into the night.

Colin stood at the edge of the army encampment long after Atherton had disappeared into the darkness. The packet of letters was heavy in his coat pocket, and the weight of a friendship that had effectively been killed it its cradle—partially through his own actions—sat heavier on his mind.

The Bridgertons had no shifters in the family. Not every member of the ton believed that, but the personal and public family history agreed with that. In the very early days of the title, one Viscount had married a shifter, but none of those children had been shifters, and the cadet lines of the families had also remained shifter-free, whether through marital choices or the trait failing to breed true. As a result, the plight of shifters and the laws making their very existence illegal had weighed little on the family. For generations, they had largely stayed out of any political issues that dealt with shifters, and as far as any of them knew, none of their family friends were shifters.

Colin had quite abruptly learned that “as far as any of them knew” was not very far at all, and he did not know what to do with the unexpectedly deep feelings of discomfort this knowledge left him with. Could he have done more? Could he have protected his friend if he had been deemed trustworthy enough to know Atherton was a shifter?

“Regretting letting the monster slip our grasp?” Mowbray’s voice was too close to Colin’s ear. His back stiffened, but he didn’t jump.

Mowbray snorted gently, not missing the sudden tension in Colin’s body, but respecting that he hadn’t yelled or flinched. “Befriending shifters is a mistake. Take it from someone who made the mistake once; they will not hesitate to stab you in the back the first chance they get, and take out as many people as they can while they do it.”

“Have you misapprehended the facts of the situation?” asked Colin. “I and my companions would be dead right now if not for Mr. Swift.”

“So would he. Saving his own skin meant saving yours this time, but it won’t always. Take my advice, Bridgerton. If the shifter gave you any information, give it to me. Mitigate some of the harm you’ve done here tonight. I can keep people safe with more information, and even I didn’t know about this sniveling bastard—”

“Say another word Mowbray, and I shall be forced to call you out.” Colin was as near to seeing red as he had ever been in his life. Had he been wearing gloves just then, he wouldn’t have bothered warning Mowbray, he would simply have removed a glove and slapped the man’s face as hard as he could.

Mowbray sighed and stepped out of Colin’s personal space. “I have no time for duels. How you live with your conscience is your own business, but I will be watching, Mr. Bridgerton. You shall not find thwarting the law so easy once we are all back on English soil.” 

Chapter Text

1813 – England

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. They could at least refrain from being a cliché,” sniffed a voice, as a pair of rabbits enjoyed each other in a secluded corner of the royal hedge maze on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

“I believe it’s worse than that,” replied Penelope Featherington. “Her family is Catholic.”

“Tcha.” The disapproval was clear in the dismissive sound. “It would serve them right if they get caught.” Penelope was no longer paying attention, instead tilting her head at the sounds of leather soles against the gravel of the path and the whisper of a silk gown as its wearer rushed to keep up with someone with longer legs. Flipping her head back, Penelope resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The pair of rabbits were sufficiently distracted that they had not heard the sounds that heralded their imminent interruption.

A barn owl’s hiss split the air.

The rabbits broke apart, trembling, and less than a second later where there had been two rabbits were an extremely disheveled Mary Anne Hallewell and Lord Fife. Mary Anne’s skirts were hiked nearly to the tops of her thighs, and Fife’s falls were down; nobody happening upon them could possibly misinterpret the situation. The footsteps were growing closer—Mary Anne and Fife seemed frozen.

“Come on, move,” willed Penelope.

“They won’t.”

Fife shifted from rabbit to human a few times in rapid succession but didn’t move. Mary Anne tried to push herself up off the ground, but slid on the loose gravel, landing on her bottom again. In just another moment, the other couple would round the corner. Fife looked like he might shift again, and Penelope could not risk anyone seeing that.

Spreading her wings, Pen launched herself from her perch in a secluded corner of the hedge and circled through the air to align herself with the new couple—neither were shifters. Screeching with the full power of her barn owl’s lungs and vocal cords, Penelope dived, her talons brushing through the second gentleman’s hair as she pulled up.   

A series of expletives that wouldn’t have been out of place in a dockside bar and a screech shriller than Penelope’s own split the air. It was quickly echoed by another feminine shriek and the sounds of bodies scrabbling on gravel.

“What the devil—” began the newcomer, thrusting his paramour behind him and moving to turn the hedge maze’s corner. Penelope wheeled in the air, feeling it stream over and through the feathers of her wings—a freedom she often longed for in her hair as her mama exhorted the maid to wind her curls tighter and higher—and dived toward the man again, this time batting his face with her wings.

“Be gentle with our wings,” scolded her owl. “That crunch had better not have been us.”

Based on the sheer volume of the crunch and the sudden muffled quality to the renewed swearing, Penelope guessed somewhat guiltily that she had forgotten her owl’s strength and broken the man’s nose…although possibly his cheekbone, given the lack of dripping sounds. She couldn’t stop to be worried about that now, however.

“Our wings are fine,” said Penelope, wheeling in the air to check on Fife and Mary Anne.

“Tcha. You don’t fly enough to know for sure.”

“When we fall out of the sky, then you may scold me!” Penelope’s owl chittered, irked, but left off scolding to ensure that they did not, in fact, fall out of the sky as Pen retraced her flight path.

Fife and Mary Anne were on their feet and running toward the far entrance of the maze. They hadn’t had the sense to separate, but neither appeared in danger of shifting where anyone could see them, and that was the important thing. The secret shifter community in the ton was safe for one more night. Penelope sighed in relief and began to make her way slowly and carefully back to the palace. Much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t fly enough to be truly confident in anything short of an emergency. Part of keeping the shifter community safe was staying hidden. And it would stay safe and hidden longer if she could identify the couple who had nearly interrupted Fife and Mary Anne…Penelope began to soar away from the palace and back toward the maze, only to be pulled up short by her owl.

“Find them back in the ballroom! You have already been gone too long; your Mama will be wondering where you got to.”

“If he has any sense, he’s going to leave,” insisted Penelope. “Taking a moment to check won’t hurt anything.” She winged back, catching the man—still cupping his face and swearing profusely, despite the presence of Miss Poohle (a younger daughter of a minor country noble)—as he climbed into a carriage emblazoned with the Cavender crest.

Philip.

One couldn’t smile with a beak, but somehow Penelope’s face managed to be viciously smug. A broken face couldn’t have happened to a worthier fellow.

The carriage pulled into the night at a frankly unsafe speed for a drive packed with other coaches, but apparently Philip was feeling embarrassed. Miss Poohle was left abruptly alone in the drive, face a combination of baffled, embarrassed, and hurt. A few tears must have slipped from her eyes, as she rubbed a hand across her cheeks before giving her head a shake, straightening her shoulders, and marching back toward the ballroom.

As Penelope winged back toward the back of the palace—specifically the servants’ quarters and functional sections of the palace where the business of running the building took place—she couldn’t help admiring Miss Poohle’s resilience. The girl was walking back into that ballroom with her head held high. Had Penelope been in her position, she would have winged herself off home to collapse on her bed and sob out her hurt and embarrassment in private, good manners and reputation be damned.

Not that she’d often needed to cry in private because of a man; since her debut season in 1810, she had grown into a near-invisible wallflower. She was firmly at the bottom of the list of eligible debutantes in her first season and had somehow managed to fall off the list in her second season. Now in her fourth season, she was slowly but surely morphing into a spinster. She was less chaperoned than chaperoning, trusted with first-year debutantes and largely ignored by the gentlemen near her own age—with a notable exception.

Colin Bridgerton never failed to dance at least once with her at any party they both attended. She suspected that in her first season, those dances had been down to Violet Bridgerton’s inexplicable, surprising, but warmly welcomed soft spot for her. All three Bridgerton brothers would dance at least one dance with her at parties, but as she and Colin got to know each other, Anthony and Benedict asked her to dance less often, and Colin began to seek her out between dances for lemonade, eclairs, and other small refreshments and conversation. By the end of that first season, she considered him a friend.

He hadn’t sought her out to dance yet at this ball, she mused. She half wondered if his siblings were still punishing him and that was why he had yet to seek her out. Eloise did not know that earlier this week Penelope had locked herself in her room to cry over an emotion she wasn’t even sure she could put a name to after she had accidentally interrupted the eldest three Bridgertons in time to hear Colin declare loudly and decidedly that he was “…certainly not going to marry Penelope Featherington!” She had been unable to swallow a confused “Oh,” and Colin’s face had been redder than her hair when he turned to see her. She had muttered some polite nothing and then practically ran for home to hide tears that were as confusing as they were strong. Anthony and Benedict would not have hidden their derision and scolding from the other Bridgertons, although they likely would have kept the details private.

She knew—because Colin and Eloise had both told her—that Violet had made it her mission to get Colin married and settled before he came to grief traveling in or near a part of Europe Bonaparte controlled. His close call in Spain on his grand tour had shattered her peace with his desire to travel—and the narrow, silvered scar along his jaw when he had finally returned home meant that Violet was descending to levels that even Portia Featherington raised eyebrows at to put desirable young ladies in the path of her third son. This resulted in an ill-tempered, trapped-feeling Colin whose generally genial nature was being sorely tested and his temper flared easily when teased about the situation.

Penelope knew all of this. She had also resigned herself to spinsterhood, coming to appreciate the ever-greater measures of freedom she experienced as she sat on the shelf. Having made her peace with a single life, she could not understand why Colin slamming the door on a future she had never truly imagined she could have with anyone—nevermind with a Bridgerton—had so affected her. She had spent the entire rest of the afternoon in her room, even begging off from a ball that evening because she had not finished bursting into renewed tears at seemingly random intervals.

The Bridgertons were at the ball tonight; Violet had been in the clutch of gossiping, matchmaking mamas near the dance floor. Did she want to see Colin? Having to ignominiously leave him on the dance floor to hide her tears would only be marginally less mortifying than crying in his arms on the dance floor and not even be able to explain herself or her feelings—

“Stop! Glass!”

The shrill warning came too late for Penelope to avoid colliding with the closed window, but she arrested enough motion that she didn’t break her beak—or her neck—when she did hit it. Stunned by the force of the impact, Penelope didn’t even try to catch herself. Instead, she focused every ounce of will, thought, and intention on staying shifted. Not even the dark underbelly of the palace was safe from prying eyes. If some servant or guard—or God forbid a non-shifter member of the ton—saw her, she was doomed.

If the glass stunned her, the ground drove every last gasp of air from Penelope’s lungs. She nearly lost control and shifted back to human, but somehow managed to hold the owl shape. Everything in her mind was a flat, heart-shaped face with a cream beak and big, liquid-black eyes. Long, soft wing and tail feathers—more red than tawny underneath dark grey speckles—and a cream-colored breast. Delicately lethal talons. She had always thought that her owl was beautiful, even if she wasn’t. Keeping her owl in her mind allowed her to stay shifted while she regained her ability to breathe.

“We have to get up.” Her owl’s voice in her head was panicky. “We have to get off the ground, we die on the ground.”

Spurred by her owl’s mental images of the sharp teeth of weasels and foxes, Penelope thrashed, trying to right herself. Between the sharp pains and aches of hitting first the window and then the ground, her damnable lack of practice in this shape, and the panic flooding her from her owl, Penelope couldn’t get herself righted. She thrashed uselessly, grinding dust and gravel into her feathers, until the report of a door slamming open made her freeze.

She was caught.

“It’s just an owl, my lady.” The young male voice was unfamiliar, and belonged to a flushed, liveried young footman. “It must have collided with the window and fallen. Shall I call a groundskeeper to dispose of it?”

“Dispose of such a magnificent creature?” Penelope’s heart stopped. She was more than simply doomed, having been caught by her mother.

Footsteps approached Penelope, and Portia Featherington swept her shifted daughter up in her arms as she might a human infant. Penelope kept her wings tightly furled. She had learned as a child what the consequences of using her wings to fight her mother’s hold were, and she had no desire to revisit them.

“I shall take it to the mews,” declared Portia, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “Return to your post, Watts.”

“Yes, my lady.” Footsteps receded, and Portia seemed to wait an interminable moment before carrying Penelope inside. As Portia found a windowless room with a deadbolt and locked them both inside, Penelope’s mind was whirring. She had left the window of the dusty and clearly rarely used storeroom open, she knew she had. This wasn’t the first time she had needed to quietly shift in an unused room, follow a careless shifter, and return through the window. The system had never failed her before, she was excellent at choosing unused rooms that were unlikely to be disturbed. Had she been unlucky tonight, or was the game up?

Portia crouched, placing Penelope on the floor. Stepping back, she crossed her arms over her bust and tapped her foot.

“We’re alone,” she snapped.

Penelope’s shift back to human form was instantaneous. She hadn’t fought her mother’s orders to shift back—hadn’t even considered fighting the order—since she was a toddler. Portia didn’t have a book to hand, but her reticule was looped around her arm. One shake of an arm and the strap was in Portia’s hand and the reticule was whipping through the air toward Penelope.

“How many times?” hissed Portia. “How many times must we go through this, Penelope? You are far too old for this kind of behavior. If you will not heed me, then I will find a husband to take you in hand, lack of dowry or no!”

The reticule thudded into Penelope’s arms and shoulders, but Penelope didn’t try to flinch or move back. Not only was there nowhere to go but it would also further enrage her mother. The reticule felt nearly empty, but the bruises from cracking Philip Cavender across the head hitting the window and ground in quick succession—which were already shadowing her body purple and blue—made each blow painful.  

“Have you no thought in your head for your sisters or this family?” continued Portia. “If you get caught their prospects will be utterly ruined—and Mr. Finch may not be the most attractive prospect who walks this earth, but he is at least here and interested in Philippa. Would you cost her a marriage?”

From long experience, Penelope knew that Portia did not require answers to any of these questions, so she held her tongue and gritted her teeth. Philippa and Prudence might not have shifted since they were children—following in their mother’s footsteps—but Penelope refused to give up her owl. Portia dictated everything about her young ladies’ lives, from what they wore to what and when they ate and with whom they were allowed to socialize. Her owl and shifting was the only taste of freedom Penelope had ever had.  

“Honestly, Penelope. We cannot go on like this. I am going to have to do something, since you have shown over and over that you cannot be trusted to obey.”

The reticule blows, which had been getting progressively weaker, finally ceased, and Portia stepped closer to her daughter, examining her hair. With quick, deft fingers she brushed dust and grit from Penelope’s curls and then straightened them, repining a few that had come loose. Her dress and gloves were unscathed, as garments always were after shifting.

The same could not be said of the body. Lifting one of Penelope’s arms, Portia turned it, tutting softly. The gap between the top of the elbow glove and the bottom of the short, puffed sleeve of the dress was mottled in bluish-purple bruises that promised to darken further by morning. Penelope wished she would stop manipulating the limb; it was sore enough already.

As deftly as she had put Penelope’s curls to rights, Portia pulled off the delicate silk chiffon shawl she had loosely looped over her elbows and looped it behind Penelope’s back before wrapping the ends around her upper arms. Then she puffed the silk artfully to cover the bruising, securing the entire thing with a couple of straight pins. Stepping back, lips pursed, Portia assessed her youngest daughter.

“You do not leave my side for the rest of the evening, or I will ship you to your cousins in Ireland so fast it will make your head spin. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama,” said Penelope.

“Well. You look a fright, but nothing that will bring ruin on the family. Come.” Portia turned on her heel. Unlocking the door, she strode out of the small room and led a seemingly cowed Penelope back to the brightly lit, smokey ballroom.

Portia attached herself to a cluster of Mamas eyeing the ballroom like vultures eyeing a carrion field and immediately joined the conversation to opine on the most eligible bachelors and debutantes. Penelope stood awkwardly in her Mama’s peripheral vision, but was excluded from the group and their conversations.

Penelope wished that she could make her way to the seating around the edge of the room for older Lords and Ladies who wished to observe the ton and socialize, but no longer had the energy to dance with the young people. She had not felt the deep aches of impact as she endured Portia’s treatment, but now that the adrenaline had subsided, Penelope was sore, and she was tired. Thanks to the pins in the shawl, she was also forced to hold her arms stiff and still, which made them ache further. If she relaxed, the pins stuck the sensitive flesh beneath her upper arms. The last thing she wanted to do was bleed all over Portia’s shawl; she would never hear the end of it if she did. 

Lord Cavender puffed angrily up to Lady Cavender, who was standing next to Portia, drawing Penelope’s attention. He had Mr., Mrs., and Miss Poohle in tow. Both men were red-faced and furious, and Mrs. Poohle looked worried. Miss Poohle, however, had a carefully neutral face. If pressed, however, Penelope would have said that there was something triumphant in her eyes.

“We must go,” announced Lord Cavender.

“My lord,” protested Lady Cavender.

“Now, Eleanor,” he snapped.

Lady Cavender snapped her fan closed and straightened her shoulders. “Portia, dear, we shall have to finish our conversation another time,” she said. “Do say you’ll call on the morrow? Or I shall call on you?”

“I shall call, of course, Eleanor,” said Portia.

“Lovely. Now, if you’ll excuse me, apparently something urgent has come up.”

Lord Cavender’s teeth were grinding audibly throughout the exchange. Penelope caught Miss Poohle’s eye, and the other girl half winked at Penelope before her parents pulled her away in the Cavender’s wake.

“Miss Featherington,” came an all-too-familiar voice from behind Penelope. “May I have the next dance?”

Portia and Penelope had both turned at “Miss Featherington” to find Colin Bridgerton, whose approach had gone unnoticed thanks to the ignominious exit of Lord and Lady Cavender.

The third eldest Bridgerton son stood before Penelope and Portia looking less relaxed than usual—although anyone who did not know him well would not have been able to tell the difference. Like Anthony and Benedict, Colin stood at about six feet tall, with well-coiffed chestnut hair and blue eyes. Colin’s eyes had perhaps a little more green to them than his brothers’ did, which had always struck Penelope. She quite liked his eyes.

Like all the Bridgertons, Colin never appeared less than expertly tailored at balls. However, where Anthony was buttoned-up to the point of severity and Benedict tended to lean toward carelessly disheveled in the small details (Penelope couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Benedict at a ball with a properly tied neck cloth), Colin generally managed to look exquisitely put together and simultaneously genial and approachable. Tonight, the bow tying his neck cloth was on nearly a forty-five-degree angle, the top button of his waistcoat was undone, and the peaks of the stiff collar brushing his jaw were ever-so-slightly off-center. They also rose higher onto his face than they were typically wont—his shoulders were tense and slightly raised.

When Colin’s eyebrow rose a fraction and his polite smile turned strained and pasted on, Penelope realized that she and her mama had been silent for too long.

“Mr. Bridgerton—” they began simultaneously before stopping at the other’s voice. Portia shot a practically venomous glare at Penelope, who had glanced into her mother’s face and then immediately down to her shoes.

“Mr. Bridgerton,” repeated Portia, with a terrible finality. “How kind of you to ask. I’m afraid that Penelope is rather tired. However, I’m sure one of my other young ladies—”

“Just one dance; please, Miss Featherington?” Colin pressed, roundly ignoring Portia.

Penelope did not have to look up to know that his eyes would be soft, begging her to take his hand and join him in the relative privacy of the dance floor to chat.

Inside her head, Penelope’s owl ruffled her feathers. “You know you want to know what he wants.”

The next thing Penelope knew, her hand was enveloped in Colin’s warm one, and they were walking toward the dance floor amid the discordant tones of the orchestra tuning. Casting a look over her shoulder at Portia’s livid face, Penelope wasn’t sure whether to flee back to her mother’s side or revel in her small rebellion.

“You still haven’t looked at him, you know.”  Penelope didn’t respond to her owl; she never did when her owl was being ridiculous. She had her eyes firmly locked on the loose top button of Colin’s waistcoat as his right arm curled around her and his left shifted its grip on her right. The shawl was pulled into tight bands across Penelope’s back and around her very sore arms, digging into existing bruises and likely creating a few new ones.

Once the music began, however, Penelope forgot her bruises and simply enjoyed being in Colin’s arms. He held her as if she were made of glass; carefully but firmly, as though she would break if he dropped her. Where some gentlemen held their dance partners too hard or offered so little resistance that their ladies had to do twice the work one normally would to complete the steps and get around their partner, Colin always knew the precise pressure to apply. Even now, despite the fact that his hand rested directly on a bruise, he was not hurting her. She felt cradled, safe. And more than that, she never failed to feel pretty and appreciated when she danced with Colin. Dancing with other gentlemen could be pleasant—Penelope rather enjoyed dancing, and was better at it than most gentlemen realized—but she never felt as well-partnered as she did when Colin led her on the floor.

“You must be angry with me, Pen,” murmured Colin, as they returned to each other after a figure eight through other couples. “You have not so much as looked at me tonight.” He squeezed her hand gently as they stepped down the line of couples. “I owe you an apology.”

That finally made Penelope raise her eyes to his face.

The consternation that filled Colin’s face wrenched her thoughts—flitting between Mary Anne and Fife’s close call, Philip’s typical ill manners, and her own aches and pains—firmly back to the young man who she had known since she and Eloise had both been seven-year-old children tossing a ball back and forth in Grosvenor Square. Colin had often been away at school in those early years, but when he had been home for the season or on holidays, he was never too grown-up to toss a ball or hoop with them for a few minutes. As they got older, he had always been willing to chat about books with them on promenade or at family teas and suppers. Penelope had developed quite a crush on the charming older boy who listened quite seriously to her thoughts on her books and would discuss them with her as though she were a peer instead of his younger sister’s playmate.

Over the years, Penelope had, on a number of occasions, seriously considered telling Colin that she was a shifter. She had known from a young age that the Bridgerton family was one of the few in the ton who truly did not have any shifters in the family, and had not in as many generations as the underground community of ton shifters could remember. Despite Portia’s insistence that her daughters pretend that they could not shift, Lord Featherington had quietly facilitated Penelope’s introduction to the shifter community at age ten, as soon as she had made it clear that she could be trusted to keep her own and others’ secrets. Shifters did not associate with each other in society; it was safer that way. Instead, they kept in touch through an underground correspondence network, with safe locations where letters could be deposited and collected at the discretion of the individuals in question. This system allowed them to nurture friendships, warn fellow shifters who had unwittingly drawn royal attention, and generally support their small, underground community. It had been run by an elderly Welsh rabbit shifter, but as he and Penelope had corresponded over the years, she had shouldered more and more of the responsibility for running the network. By the time she debuted, she was functionally in charge, with the old rabbit shifter available if she needed assistance or advice.

It was her knowledge of and role in this network and the secrets that weren’t hers to share that had stilled Penelope’s tongue every time she turned to Colin to say, “I am a shifter.” Even her owl wouldn’t have stopped Penelope from telling Colin to protect her, but the other shifters? That stopped Penelope cold every time. She still had nightmares about Miss Euphemia being captured at her presentation by the Lord Provost Marshall, Sir Harlow Collins, the Viscount Mowbray. His too-smooth stalk and seeming enjoyment of Miss Euphemia’s fear had never left the recesses of Penelope’s mind, and she would not be the reason another shifter fell to his tender mercies.

Since she could not tell Colin about her whole self, Penelope had simply never found a way to communicate her feelings to him either. Somehow, trying to tell him that she liked him when she couldn’t share her whole self with him had seemed…disingenuous. Even if she had told Colin she liked him, how could he like her when he couldn’t know all of her? That had been a heartache and spiral into sadness that Penelope simply hadn’t been able to face. She had decided that she would simply never marry, and she and Colin had remained friends.

“Answer him before he—” began Penelope’s owl, but before she could finish, Colin’s expression grew even more concerned, and he spoke.   

“Please, say something, Pen?”

Had he been speaking? She thought, realizing that if he had been, she hadn’t heard a word after “apology.”

“I—ah…that is…” her voice petered away lamely as she felt her cheeks flush, embarrassed that she had been so wrapped in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard one of her best friends when he was speaking directly to her.

“Are you so angry with me you cannot find words?” His frown deepened. “Or are you truly not feeling well, and I have behaved abominably, dragging you onto the dance floor without a care for your well-being?”

“I rather enjoy dancing,” she responded quickly. Anything to resolve the worry in his face.

“But you are either angry or unwell?”

“Well no, but…that is, I…” Why on earth couldn’t she get the words out to answer his questions like a sensible person?

Colin glanced about them, and seemed to come to a decision, nodding once to himself. Shifting his grip on Penelope, he smoothly maneuvered them out of the line of dancers without missing a beat himself or causing any other couple to lose their place in formation—an impressive feat. More than a few unpartnered debutantes along the edges of the floor took note, whispering intently to each other or their mamas. Penelope could hear snatches of the whispers, from “so gracefully done” and “what a gentleman” to “catch yourself a Bridgerton” and “wasted on the heavy Featherington girl.” Before she could so much as blush or feel her stomach roil at the vicious words, Penelope found herself on a chair in a corner of the room cooled by the breeze from an open window with a glass of lemonade in her hand and Colin positioned to block her from view of the rest of the room, but without making their tete-a-tete so private as to be scandalous. Had she been feeling faint, this would have been the most courteous thing Colin could have done.

As it was, however, Penelope found herself on the verge of panic, feeling trapped by his presence and the unfinished business and secrets between them. He was worried she was angry with him. She wanted nothing more than to reassure him, but between her physical aches and pains and the butterflies in her stomach, she wasn’t sure enough of her own feelings to do so. She couldn’t even bury everything and lie as she often did with her mama—Colin knew her too well for that.

“Colin—”

“Pen—”

They both stopped, uncertain. Colin’s hands were folded behind him, and he looked like he wanted to pace. Penelope at least had the lemonade glass to occupy her hands, but feeling clumsy as a toddle with the fine crystal added yet another layer of anxiety that she simply did not need. A long moment of silence was followed by simultaneous awkward gestures from both parties, encouraging the other to speak. Ordinarily that would have broken the awkward moment with companionable laughter, but by the time they realized that, the moment had passed and the situation was so palpably tense that the atmosphere could have been cut by a knife.

“If I waited too long to seek you out to apologize, I am deeply sorry, Pen,” said Colin rapidly, in a single breath. “You must know that I spoke in frustration, and I did not mean to say that you were not a desirable marriage partner. For someone. Who is, of course, not me. Why, any man of the ton would be lucky to have you as his wife—”

“Just not you,” Penelope finished for him, the acid in her tone surprising her. She wasn’t angry at him, so why did it sound as though she was? And why had she responded in such a way as to force him to feel even more churlish than he clearly already did?

“Pen, I didn’t mean…I mean, I had never considered you in that manner. That is, we’ve been such good friends for so long that…” he trailed off. “You are Pen,” he said, helplessly.

“I am indeed Pen,” she agreed. “And you are Colin. And we are friends.” She smiled, stood, handed him the half-full glass of lemonade, and strode back to her mama. Had she looked back, Colin’s bewildered, hurt face would have pinched her heart.

"What on earth was that?” scolded her owl.

"We are friends,” insisted Penelope, before blocking out any reply her owl might have made.

Now if only she could convince her stomach and her heart that they were just friends. That all they could ever be was good friends. She hadn’t made any progress on that front by the time she returned to Portia’s side. Thankfully, Portia was engrossed in a conversation with some other ladies, so she barely spared Penelope a cutting look before proceeding to ignore her. That was normal enough that Penelope could push her feelings aside and begin composing in her head the several things she needed to write and secretly deliver tonight before she slept.

Chapter Text

1813

Dearest Gentle Reader,

Little is so clandestine and seductive during London season parties as the famous royal hedge maze. With its nooks and crannies, twists and turns, heads and hearts can easily be turned about to the point of dizziness! Incautious couples who plunge into the leafy depths like Shakespeare’s famous quartet may find Oberon’s wild pansy potion dripped onto sleeping lids.

Or, in the case of young Philip Cavender, they may find that some mischievous fairies know how to throw a punch. Yes, dear reader, the much-maligned younger son of the Cavender family has been seen about town this morning sporting quite the black eye, and after they and the Poohle family were seen to absquatulate from the queen’s ball in such an undignified manner. Given the shocking vibrance of the bruise, this author deems it unlikely that wedding bells shall follow whatever occurred in the maze—a duel seems far likelier.

Be warned, you men of the ton who would catch your Helenas and Hermias in hedge mazes: Young ladies often have brothers who know your ways, and those brothers are not above teaching their sisters the proper manner in which to dissuade you. Learn from Master Cavender’s mishap, and do nothing that would result in you deservedly sporting the head—or at least the bruised eye—of an ass.

            — Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

“Why does Lady Whistledown always insist on writing in references that nobody could possibly understand?” complained Prudence, from her seat at the small table in the morning room of Featherington House.

“It’s Shakespeare, you goose,” said Philippa, slurping her tea loudly. “She means that play we read, the one with the Forest of Arden.”

“I rather think she meant A Midsum—” Penelope began, before Prudence interrupted.

“It still seems very silly,” said Prudence. “Hedge mazes are not forests.”

“No, but if you were caught unchaperoned with a man in either one, you should surely have to marry him,” giggled Philippa as she reached for a small cake on the serving platter in the middle of the table. She examined it closely before popping it into her mouth.

“There shall be no unchaperoned visits into any types of foliage,” declared Portia. “Miss Poohle is extremely lucky that Lady Whistledown did not name her in this sheet; not another soul at the party could confirm that she was the chit in the maze. And certainly her mother will not allow anyone to examine her knuckles, that would simply be barbaric for anything less than an accusation of shifting.”

Lady Whistledown had indeed protected Miss Poohle as best she could, thought Penelope. The letters to Mary Anne and Fife had been far less artful, however, clearly scolding them for coming so close to being caught shifting on palace grounds, of all things. Fife was so embarrassed to have been seen that he had announced a continental tour to begin within the week—anything to get him out of London until the shifter community had forgotten about his complete lack of discretion. With any luck, there wouldn’t be any more issues with near-caught shifters this season. Truly, Mary Anne and Fife had come closer to being caught than anyone had in over a year.

This was the problem with having secrets. The longer one went successfully hiding it, the more blasé one was about keeping said secret. Near-misses and scares might serve to remind shifters that they had to be cautious, but the cost of getting caught—execution or conscription (merely a slower form of execution, in Penelope’s estimation)—was simply too high. And while Penelope could and did do her best to redirect ton attention and warn her fellow shifters, if ever there was another Miss Euphemia, there would be nothing at all she could do. Nothing, save stand silent and soul-wounded as one of her people was dragged away by Viscount Mowbray.

Every shifter caught and killed was a reminder to the others that they could all-too-easily be next.

“Miss Eloise Bridgerton,” announced a footman whose arrival Penelope had failed to mark.

Eloise barely stopped to curtsey politely and greet Lady Featherington and her elder daughters before grabbing Penelope’s hand and dragging her from the morning room, through the front hall, and out the door into the square. Penelope barely managed to pull one of her gloves on with the uncouth help of her teeth. Eloise would not release her other hand long enough for Penelope to get the other one on; it was hastily shoved in a pocket. She would tug it on once Eloise’s exuberance faded.

“Eloise, slow down!” Penelope had worn a day dress with long sleeves and wrapped a mostly opaque fichu around her exposed neck, so she wasn’t worried about Eloise seeing her bruising, despite her hair being up. That did not alleviate how stiff and sore she was.

“You shall never believe what I’ve heard,” said Eloise, breathless. “You know that my maid has a cousin who works in the palace, but what we did not know is that she was tidying the nooks and crannies of the hedge maze—”

“Why on earth would a maid need to tidy a hedge maze? Oughtn’t a gardener be involved in that task?”

“Gardeners manage the hedges, yes,” replied Eloise, turning to trot backwards across the square to face her friend as they spoke. “But the maids and footmen must check it after balls for lost items or evidence of anyone who overindulged and was ill. The queen apparently cannot stand that kind of mess.”

“Eloise will you watch where you are going?”

“No, you must listen! I think Lady Whistledown knows even more than people think she does. Everyone thinks that Miss Poohle was in a compromising position with Mr. Cavender, but Lady Whistledown said ‘couples’ plural.” A copy of that morning’s Whistledown was waved aggressively under Penelope’s nose, and Eloise sped her pace in excitement.

“I rather think she meant it in a general sense, not as a puzzle or conspiracy,” panted Penelope.

“I thought so too until my maid mentioned that her cousin had found a fragment of a gown in the maze that did not match Miss Poohle’s dress! Between that, ‘couples,’ and ‘Helenas and Hermias,’ I truly believe that Lady Whistledown was trying to tell us that Mr. Cavender was, in fact, meeting more than one—oh!”

The sound of hoofbeats had gone unnoticed by both girls, and trotting along backwards, Eloise had not seen the danger of a barely controlled phaeton heading their way. They would have both been hit had not a large man smoothly swept up both of them and pulled them out of the path of the speeding vehicle.

Even before the danger had fully passed, Eloise had whacked their rescuer on the arm and he released her so she could run a few steps after the phaeton, berating the driver for his recklessness and poor driving skills. She hadn’t looked twice at the man who had very likely saved her and Penelope’s lives.

The phaeton’s driver had quite left Penelope’s mind as soon as she recognized their erstwhile rescuer.

Her owl, generally sleeping or sluggish during the day, came abruptly to alertness and hissed in Penelope’s head. She was controlling her breathing, burying a fear that Miss Penelope Featherington, ordinary debutante, would have no reason to feel. Owl shifter Penelope, however, had every reason to fear the queen’s shifter hunter.

Viscount Mowbray had been very little at court in the five years since Miss Euphemia’s ignominious presentation, and Penelope had not had occasion to see him since that day. He was still hawkish, still dressed unfashionably for society but practically for a man who did hard physical work regularly. The parts of Penelope’s brain that weren’t occupied by a furious owl or frozen in a near-primal fear noted that despite the archaic style, the fabrics and tailoring were high quality.

His incongruously golden hair was still worn in a queue rather than cropped short, but there was a lighter streak in it that almost certainly grew from a scar on his scalp, and there were faint, white scars across the left side of his jawline that would undoubtedly match some poor predatory bird shifter’s claws. More claw scars and bite scars covered his hands, mostly gone white with age—the exception was a puffy, red, clearly recent scar that ran from the divot between his first two knuckles and disappeared beneath his cuff.  

Lifting her gaze, Penelope unexpectedly found herself meeting—and holding—Mowbray’s eyes. Any other gentleman of the ton would be focused on Eloise, both because she was a Bridgerton and because she was animatedly furious. This pattern had played out a few times during the girls’ friendship; gentlemen would flock to Eloise while Penelope was left to quietly manage herself and assess the situation. While Mowbray had an arm out to prevent Eloise from running back into the street and within easy reach should she choose to grasp it, his focus was on Penelope.

The intensity of his level, evaluative gaze was deeply unsettling for a young woman who was both used to being a wallflower and used to hiding herself in shifted form. It was also somehow magnetic; Penelope couldn’t have broken the eye contact if she had wanted to.

“We are not prey,” hissed her owl. Penelope wasn’t sure she agreed. This had to be what a mouse or vole felt when they were firmly in the sights of a predator and knew escape was futile. Even hiding in plain sight might not be enough to save her life when there were mere inches between hunter and hunted.

Was there something of approval in the back of his eyes? Or could he see through her façade to the owl in her head?

“Eloise!” Two similar voices and the sounds of running feet made Penelope’s owl, if not Penelope herself, relax. Mowbray still did not release her gaze.

“Eloise what on earth are you playing at?” Benedict Bridgerton’s normally relaxed, half focused elsewhere voice was highly immediate and a combination of furiously worried and deeply relieved. “You could have been run down, you are too old not to watch what you are about!”

“And to nearly get Pen run down alongside you, for heaven’s sake!” Colin’s voice was harder than Pen was accustomed to hearing, complicated with fury, worry, relief, and something she couldn’t quite place. His face might have given some clue—if she could have turned her head.

Warm hands enveloped Penelope’s, and suddenly Colin’s face was the entirety of her field of view. He was physically bulling Lord Mowbray aside as Benedict continued to berate Eloise.

“Are you all right, Pen?” he asked softly.

Her stomach dropped, and her heart sped up. Then she took a deep breath, gave a small smile, and firmly tugged her hands from Colin’s. He had made it clear that they were friends, and it was hardly appropriate for a male friend to stand that close to her and hold her hands, even if the circumstances offered some excuse.

“No harm done,” she said, stepping back.

“For heaven’s sake we are fine,” exclaimed Eloise, silencing Bendict. “This lord here…” she gestured toward Viscount Mowbray, then cocked her head when he did not immediately offer his name. “This lord ensured we were not struck. We shall thank him and go about our day.”

Benedict’s face had gone carefully neutral when he recognized Lord Mowbray, which seemed politer and more politic than Colin’s barely concealed scowl.

“It seems we owe you thanks, Lord Mowbray.” Benedict’s voice was stiff, but not impolite.

“Oh.” Eloise’s voice was mostly an exhale. She would know the name, but she had even less reason to know who Mowbray was than Penelope, since neither she nor any of the Bridgertons were shifters. Eloise did not have nightmares about Miss Euphemia’s presentation.

Mowbray had taken Colin’s rudeness and Benedict’s stiffness with surprising grace, giving ground without any of the grumbling that young gentlemen tended to engage in. He even offered the Bridgertons a polite bow.

“I was simply lucky to be in the right place to ensure that no harm came to the ladies,” Mowbray responded to Benedict. “Any gentleman would have done the same.”

“Well, you have our thanks,” Benedict reiterated.

“Now if you gentlemen will excuse us,” piped up Eloise. “Penelope and I were going walking.”

“Surely not unaccompanied,” said Mowbray, smoothly. “That seems unwise; you may be more shaken than you are aware. Would you consent to my accompanying you?”

“That is hardly necessary—” began Penelope.

“At least permit me to accompany you across the square, to ensure that no further carriages endanger you?”

“That is entirely unnecessary,” said Eloise, flatly.

“It is in the direction I am going,” Mowbray said. “It shall be far less uncomfortable to proceed together than to proceed as two parties in the same direction. Miss?” He offered his arm to Penelope, eyebrow raised and waiting for her name.

Penelope swallowed briefly, but there was no polite or unobtrusive way to avoid the acquaintance. Steeling herself, Penelope gingerly took Mowbray’s arm.

“Featherington,” she said, softly. “Miss Penelope Featherington.”

“Miss Featherington.” Mowbray nodded politely at her.

“We shall accompany you as well,” announced Colin, wrapping Eloise’s arm around his and studiously ignoring her pointed glare. Benedict rolled his eyes and took his sister’s other arm, dragging the trio over so that Colin was less aggressively invading Penelope and Mowbray’s space. All five set out across the square.

“I am impressed by your composure, Miss Featherington,” Mowbray said. “Many gently reared young women fail to adjust to even the smallest shocks.”

You would know, Penelope thought viciously. How many of them have you given the worst shocks of their lives? Aloud, she said, “I have always been a rather practical sort of person.”

“Yes, indeed. I remember how calm you were at the debutante presentation of the year eight.” He cleared his throat. “Regrettable day, of course.”

“I’m sure you had too much to do to notice a girl who was not even being presented,” Penelope demurred, not wanting to discuss the day.

“Excellent situational awareness is required for a gentleman of my position,” he replied. “I could hardly help but notice you. You were the only young lady not in hysterics. I was impressed that day, Miss Featherington, and I am unaccountably pleased to find that you have maintained that composure to the present day.” They had reached the other side of the square, and the group quite naturally came to a stop.

“We are off to the park,” said Eloise, pointedly.

“Ah,” said Mowbray. “Then it seems this is where I leave you. I have other business in Mayfair that I must attend. Miss Bridgerton,” he gave her a polite bow, and Eloise dropped a halfhearted, shallow curtsey.

“Misters Bridgerton,” he added, nodding politely to both Benedict and Colin. He had yet to release Penelope’s arm. Before Penelope could pull away, however, Mowbray had moved smoothly, not quite twirling himself and Penelope, but the next thing she knew, he was standing before her again, both her hands in his. She suddenly realized that she was still wearing only one glove, and he was wearing no gloves at all—the contact of his skin on hers was suddenly hideously intimate. He gently, carefully lifted her gloved hand to press a kiss to her knuckles.

Had she imagined the subtle squeeze to her bare hand?

Raising his eyes to hers once again, Mowbray said, “Good day, Miss Featherington. Do keep one of your practical, composed eyes out for runaway carriages.” He released both her hands—completely within the bounds of propriety, she distantly noted—before pivoting with military precision and striding away from the group.

Penelope scrabbled frantically in her pocket for her other glove and violently yanked it over her bare hand. She was terrified, which made sense to her. She was also deeply ashamed, which made less sense to her. She fidgeted with her gloves, making sure they fit properly to cover her feelings and buy herself time to let the flush fade from her cheeks.

Benedict sighed deeply. “Well, that was…unexpected. Eloise, if you promise not to almost get yourself killed again, we’ll let you and Penelope continue walking.”

“I promise,” said Eloise, rolling her eyes. “We can finally finish our conversation.”

“Very well. Come along, Colin—”

“I shall stay,” declared Colin.

“You cannot be serious,” said Eloise.

“Let them have their walk,” said Benedict.

“I don’t trust Mowbray,” said Colin. “I shall stay.”

“You shall do no such thing,” insisted Eloise. “Go home.”

“Well, I’m going home,” announced Benedict. “I refuse to get in the middle of this fight.” He turned on his heel and strode back across the square toward Bridgerton House, leaving Colin and Eloise in a glaring match. 

“Go away, Colin. You may not pirate my outing with Penelope to fix whatever it is you broke at the ball.” Eloise yanked her arm from her brother’s. Colin stepped back, red-faced.

“Oh yes, of course, because obviously I cannot be concerned for your well-being, I must have committed some inexcusable social gaffe!”

“We are clearly fine! You weren’t this worried when Gregory misjudged his swing a sent a pall mall ball directly into Francesca’s head, so forgive me for suspecting you of an ulterior motive now.”

“You’re getting to be of an age where an escort is required—”

“Not even Mama has said we need a chaperone to walk in the park. Your excuses are pitiful Colin, and we are leaving. Come on, Pen.” Eloise tugged roughly enough on Penelope’s arm that the redhead had to hide a wince. Unfortunately, the combination of tugging and Penelope twisting unconsciously away from Eloise tugged her fichu askew. This particular fichu was a hand-me-down from Philippa, who was built smaller than Penelope and had a significantly smaller bosom, so the ends were not tucked as securely into the front of Penelope’s dress as they could be, and since Penelope had not expected to be out of the house, she had neglected to pin it. One corner sprung completely free, and the fichu dropped down to swing behind her back.

“Eloise!” exclaimed Penelope and Colin.

“Oh Pen, I do apologize,” said Eloise. Colin stepped to Penelope’s side, catching the loose end of the fichu, and Penelope felt him freeze.

She had used the big mirror on her armoire door and a small hand mirror to review the bruising on her back when she had dressed that morning. The bruising on her neck wasn’t nearly as ugly as the blue-black splotches on her shoulder blades, but it was a rather alarming blue against her skin and clearly continued below the neckline of her dress. Young ladies were not supposed to have even the small greenish-yellow bruises that could result from simply existing in the world. Her bruises defied simple explanations, and it was easiest to simply hide them.

“My God, Pen. What happened?”

There was warmth on the back of her neck; Colin’s hand was hovering over the bruise, as though he could wipe it away with sheer willpower.

“Oh Penelope. I thought Philippa and Prudence had stopped this years ago?” The pity in Eloise’s voice stung, but Penelope was used to it by now. She and Eloise had been friends since childhood, and when Penelope was learning to control her shifting, she had often gotten bruises from ill-advised flights. Well, ill-advised landings, really, and Penelope had not always been able to hide the bruises from her best friend. Fortunately, with older sisters who made no secret of their dislike of her, Penelope had had a ready-made excuse in childhood. She had gotten so adept at hiding things the last few years that she had forgotten how she had explained what she couldn’t hide away to Eloise when they were children.

“Your own sisters did this to you?” The bare rage in Colin’s voice startled Penelope, and she took a step away from him, still connected by his grasp on the end of her fichu.

“Not all families get along as well as the Bridgertons,” she said. Her face was threatening to burn red again.

“There is not getting along and then there is hurting someone,” Colin insisted. “I remember when Daphne and Eloise used to throw hairbrushes at each other. They left the occasional red mark or barely-there yellow bruise. Pen, this looks worse than the bruises rival boxers leave on each other. What happened?”

Penelope felt heat rise, her face was certainly red now. Bafflingly, the words “I am a shifter” rose in her throat, and she had to grit her teeth to keep them from popping out. He might have been a friend, but she did not dare put the shifter community at risk by frankly explaining that she had been foolish and flown into a window. The effort of holding back the confession felt as though it bound her entirely; she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t break this stalemate.

Thankfully, Eloise’s famously small reservoir of patience ran out before Colin could ask again. She snatched the end of the fichu out of her brother’s hand, gave it to her friend, and stood to shield Penelope as she tucked the end back into the front of her gown. She glared at her brother as she said, “Penelope does not owe you an explanation, and your insistence is upsetting her. Go away.”

“You might let her speak for herself, Eloise,” snapped Colin. “For someone so enthusiastic about women having independence, you are certainly quick to rob your best friend of hers.”

“How dare—”

“Colin.” Penelope’s voice was louder and shriller than was ladylike—it came out so like her mother’s that she nearly winced. However, her fichu was back in place, and she simply did not have the energy to let that remark spark the fight it was almost certainly intended to. She was tired, sore, and had just had to politely promenade with a figure from her nightmares. She would have liked nothing more than to go home, but if Eloise had news that would reveal Mary Anne as a shifter, she had to know.

It was harder for women shifters to escape crown notice if so much as a rumor began about them. Gentlemen could simply leave, go off on a grand tour or travel to India or the Mediterranean until everyone forgot the rumors and they could slip quietly back to England. Or they could—and many did—simply leave and not return. The shifters among the ton were predominantly women these days, and then only the ones whose parents had not the resources to leave the country when their daughters shifted for the first time—generally between ages five and seven. It was almost unheard of for parents to turn shifter daughters over to the crown. Parents might turn sons over in the hope that they would receive training and survive their crown-appointed missions, but daughters were generally kept hidden or shipped off to extended family, out of the scrutinizing eyes of society.

Unless, of course, those daughters panicked, shifted in public, and were lost to the crown through unfortunate circumstance.

It was for every little shifter girl and the women they grew into that Penelope swallowed her admission, looked Colin in the eyes and said, “You are upsetting me. I do not wish to speak of it. I would like you to leave.”

Colin’s face fell, and the bewilderment and hurt in his eyes made something in Penelope’s chest clench painfully.

“Pen…I don’t understand. I thought that even if I had made an absolute fool of myself…You said we were friends. I only want to help.”

“You cannot fix this.”

“Surely there is something?”

“No, Colin.”

He seemed to deflate before her eyes. She half expected him to turn and go back to Bridgerton House, but he simply stood there, looking like nothing so much as a kicked puppy. If she was going to finish her conversation with Eloise, she would have to be the one to move.

In Penelope’s head, her owl mantled in distress—although whether at her distress or Colin’s was unclear.

Gently threading her arm through Eloise’s, Penelope turned them both and stepped toward the park. A hand caught her free upper arm, pinching the bruises there, and Penelope gasped in pain. The hand immediately released her, and she turned back again, to see consternation across Colin’s face. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, didn’t know about the bruises her long sleeves were covering, but the look on his face left Penelope in no doubt that he did know he’d hurt her.

“Pen, forgive me. I just…please know that I consider you a friend, and if there is ever anything you wish to tell me, I will listen.”

To hide the tears she wasn’t going to be able to keep from falling and the trembling she could already feel threatening her lower lip, Penelope simply set her sights on the park and pulled Eloise alongside her, leaving Colin on the edge of the square.

Once they were deep in the park on the path alongside the small creek that most ladies preferred to avoid because it tended toward muddy, Eloise stopped politely ignoring Penelope’s intermittent sniffles and the odd tear sliding down her cheek. Stopping and taking her best friend’s hands in hers, Eloise waited until Penelope looked at her to speak.

“For all that my brother can be as indelicate as a bull in a china shop, he isn’t wrong to be worried. What on earth did Prudence do that left that much of a bruise, Pen?”

Sliding back into the pattern of lying to her best friend was painfully simple. Especially since the lie she had decided to tell had more than a grain of truth to it; the lie was largely that Prudence could aim.

“I was leaving a fight. She threw a book after me.”

“What penny-a-word author wrote enough for a book that could leave a mark like that?”

“Shakespeare’s romances. The binding is quite robust.”

With every lie, every little piece of narrative she wove together, Penelope felt herself come more and more under control. There was guilt about lying, yes; there was also a deep sense of…something that was maybe guilt and maybe hurt and definitely shame about how she had spoken to get rid of Colin, but she couldn’t afford to let her own guilt jeopardize other shifters. As wonderful as the Bridgerton family was to her, they were not shifters. She did not think they would turn her and all her community in to the crown, but that was not a choice she could risk making.

Staying silent was becoming more difficult, however. It was straining her non-shifter relationships, especially ones she would be most loathe to lose. Except that she would lose Colin eventually, no matter what he said about being friends. He would marry and move on with his life, leaving her outside of his affections.

Not that she wanted to be in his affections. He was nosey and she had already resigned herself to spinsterhood. She could worry about Colin later, once she knew whether she needed to warn Mary Anne.

“Pen, perhaps you ought to speak to your mama about this.” Eloise hesitated, squeezing Penelope’s hands gently. “I know you said she was unsympathetic, but with such evidence before her—”

“I might prefer a distraction to problem solving,” interrupted Penelope, pulling one of her hands free and gently starting the pair walking again. “I believe that you had something of great import to tell me when you so enthusiastically pulled me from breakfast? Something about a gown scrap in the hedge maze?”

Eloise needed little more encouragement that than to dive back into her theories about the scrap of blush pink silk velvet that had been found in the hedge maze, but Penelope ceased to listen as soon as Eloise shared the color. Mary Anne looked ill in blush pink, and had been wearing green that night. Furthermore, blush pink was one of the most popular colors for court dresses among this year’s debutantes. Replacing a torn panel would be simple and there had been too many girls in the color to narrow down a reasonable suspect from a scrap. This was not something Penelope would need to deal with. As that weight lifted from her mind and her owl finally slid back into sleep, Penelope let Eloise chatter on as her own thoughts turned to Lord Mowbray.

The Lord Provost Marshal was, as far Penelope knew, an extremely hands-on leader. This kept him out of England for long stretches—she hadn’t actually seen him since 1808, although he had been back in the country for brief periods since then. His unit was responsible for the identification, capture or execution, and deployment of shifters in the war against Bonaparte. He was something of an anomaly in the ton, given that he was actually the third son of an earl. He had been named Provost Marshal after capturing a traitorous shifter somewhere on the continent, and valor on the battlefield had earned him the title of Viscount and the Mowbray estates. Since his elevation to Provost Marshal, the number of identified and captured shifters had increased five-fold, and many more shifters were quietly leaving England.

That was the sum total of the factual information that was available about Lord Mowbray. The man was infuriatingly private even when he was in London, and his frequent absences meant that what did circulate about him was wild speculation at best and obviously fantasy at worst. Just last year there had been a ridiculous story that all the tabloid—with the exception of Lady Whistledown—had printed and reprinted to death about Mowbray leading a glorious charge of a light brigade of shifters during the battle of Salamanca that had turned the tide of the battle and led to a hideous defeat for the French forces. One particularly zealous printer had commissioned a woodblock of Mowbray riding a charging centaur into battle, followed by a veritable menagerie of beasts, while the French cowered behind the most ramshackle fortifications Penelope had ever seen depicted in ink. The fanciful dust clouds and pointed sunbeams in the woodblock had given the whole thing such a fantastical air that the queen had gifted a famed print of it to Mowbray. The man made headlines again when another tabloid had intercepted a letter in which Mowbray rather excoriated the artist for not knowing the difference between a centaur and a shifter.

Penelope had appreciated that Mowbray at least knew the difference, but that had not offered a sop to her feelings when the queen had had the writer and printer transported for daring to intercept mail between the army and the crown. It had also hammered home how dangerous it was for Lady Whistledown to be so much as neutral on shifters, but she simply could not bring herself to repeat sentiments that painted them as inherently lesser or traitorous or cowardly. Unfortunately, that was largely how the press viewed shifters, and it had been getting worse lately. Undoubtedly, rumors were feeding that spike in spite, but if there was any substance below those rumors, Penelope and every shifter left in England could be in trouble.

Since the battle of Salamanca, there had been murmurings in parliament and some of the drier ton academic circles about Mowbray lobbying to change the laws about British shifters abroad. Penelope had not been able to get any concrete information about that since the rumors had begun to circulate, but she was keeping a careful ear to the ground. If shifter could not escape by leaving the country, she simply had no idea what they would do.

“And if you would credit it, Anthony has refused to let me listen to Lord Mowbray’s speech to parliament this week!” The name of the figure of her nightmares in her friend’s mouth pulled Penelope out of her reverie.

“What speech to parliament?” she asked.

“You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” responded Eloise.  “Are you quite sure you don’t need to rest and recover from that dreadful bruise?”

“I said I wanted a distraction, El.”

“Oh, very well, but you cannot tell Anthony I told you, this is meant to be private, and I only know because I was eavesdropping. Apparently, Lord Mowbray has been writing to parliament for over a year, insisting that they should change the law about apprehending shifters on the continent. He wasn’t receiving anything like a timely reply, so he finally wrote to the crown—Anthony didn’t say whether to Her Majesty or the Prince Regent—and they have insisted that parliament hears his argument. That’s why he’s back in London for the season. It seems he isn’t scheduled to speak for a couple of months, but he is here to try to gain support from the lords.”

“Will he be at the season’s social events?” It was a struggle for Penelope to ask that question in an airy, nonchalant tone, but she had to know if she was about to spend a season trying to avoid her nightmares at every party.

“I cannot imagine why he would want to be, but if he was looking for allies, that would be the place to find them,” said Eloise. “If Mama were still doing the invitations and parties I would be able to tell you for sure, but Kate is managing them now and she does not force me to be involved in the planning.”

So, she would not know if she had to face Lord Mowbray socially again until she was there. Bile rose in Penelope’s throat as she remembered the hard look in Mowbray’s eyes as he stalked Miss Euphemia and her own inability to break his gaze earlier. She and every other shifter in London would have to be very, very careful this season.

Chapter Text

The bruises that showed above the neckline of Penelope’s gown had faded to green by Lady Danbury’s ball, and the ones on her arms had faded to a dim yellow, but Portia had declared that while Penelope must still wear a spencer jacket with a high collar all evening, and to complain of being cold if asked about it. Penelope had not bothered to ask what she ought to do when her red, perspiring face ultimately made her a liar—that would have simply gotten her swatted with her mother’s elbow gloves, and she was too worried about running into Lord Mowbray.

Her nightmares about Miss Euphemia’s presentation had intensified over the past few days, and the previous night, Penelope had tried to stay awake, thinking exhaustion would be easier to manage. Unfortunately, she had slipped into sleep and her nightmare had changed.

In reality, her and her sisters’ joint presentation had gone without a hitch. In her dreams, however, Penelope was the one who had shifted, been smothered in a coat, and released just to die, alone and far from home. What had finally woken her was thunderous pounding on the wall that divided her room from Prudence’s. She had called out in her sleep. 

At that point, Penelope had shrugged a cozy shawl over her shoulders and crept down to the kitchen for tea and to wait for dawn. The tea had helped calm her nerves, but it wasn’t until she had to face her Mama that she could stop trembling.

Now as she stepped over the threshold to the expansive ballroom of Danbury House, Penelope clasped her hands tightly before her; they were trembling again. As Portia, Prudence, and Philippa swept past her, Penelope melted into the background and found herself along a side wall, surveying the room.

The first Danbury ball of the season was always highly traditional and lush, and always held in the Danbury ballroom. The room itself was expansive, with a raised dais at one end for the musicians. Tonight, that dais held a small chamber orchestra and pianoforte player, who were already playing some incidental music as the crowd formed and mingled. The floor before the dais was done in an exquisite parquet that both added visual interest to the otherwise plain hardwood floor of the hall and delineated a dance floor.

The room was beautifully and brightly lit by a combination of a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and matched crystal candelabras mounted at regular intervals along the walls. They were all high enough that not even the tallest gentleman risked knocking his head on the fixtures, and the tapers were of the highest quality beeswax. What little smoke they produced was cunningly directed out of ceiling-height windows that were opened for precisely that purpose.

Around the edges of the room were little alcoves delineated by pockets of comfortable seating for those who were disinclined to dance but wanted to remain part of the main party. All the seating was upholstered in Danbury colors, was meticulously maintained, and spoke of wealth in their timeless design, expensive materials, and fine craftsmanship—a far cry from the gaudy but cheap furniture in the Featherington parlor.

The walls also held long tables with refreshments, which stopped about a third of the way to the dance floor. The linens were all crisply white and fresh, with china that equaled—but very carefully did not surpass—that which was found at court functions and balls. The food on offer was light and well-chosen to be simple to manage on one’s feet between turns on the floor. There was ample lemonade, punch, and stronger drinks for those who wished to partake. However, the Danbury footmen were notorious for subtly watering the drinks of young men who tended to overindulge—Lady Danbury held no appreciation for those who failed to hold their liquor.

The crowd was thick, even this early in the evening. It had spilled over onto the dance floor—which had yet to open—with clusters of debutantes, young gentlemen, and older members of the ton all calling greetings and sharing new gossip. The rustle of silks and satins and the swish of velvets and georgettes lent a susurrating undertone to the music and voices. Candlelight winked off of gems in tiaras and around ladies’ throats and wrists.

It was a beautiful picture, one Penelope generally would have spent a few leisurely minutes dissecting to check for either shifter activity that might need her eye to ensure that nobody got caught or else prime pockets to listen in to for her next Whistledown. Tonight, however, she was distracted hunting for—and ultimately being unable to find—a fair head in dark, outdated clothing.

“Ah, the youngest Miss Featherington,” came a fond voice accompanied by the firm thud of walking stick on wood floor.

A small smile graced Penelope’s face as she turned and offered a polite curtsey to her hostess and friend, Lady Danbury. “Good evening, Lady Danbury. It looks as though the entire ton is here tonight.”

“Nearly, yes. Even Her Majesty is due to make an appearance tonight. Now, you didn’t hear this from me, but Her Majesty’s insistence on my offering a general invitation to the officers in residence is simply asking for trouble.”

“I don’t see any—” before Penelope could finish, the double doors swung wide to admit a herald.

“Her Majesty, Queen Charlotte,” he announced to the ballroom. Everyone present bowed or curtseyed as Charlotte swept through the doors and made for Lady Danbury. She was followed by a gaggle of ladies in dresses nearly thirty years out of date and a crowd of gentlemen in regimentals. Their bright red jackets and gold epaulettes melded together to turn them into a faceless crowd. Penelope could hear murmurs from the group of ton gentlemen to her right and from the group of matchmaking mamas to her left. Neither group sounded pleased about the introduction of soldiers to their ranks tonight. Penelope, however, breathed a subtle sigh of relief when she failed to see Mowbray in the group of soldiers. His preference for dark colors would have stood out among the red coats. She could be herself tonight, and take time to get used to the idea of seeing Mowbray socially.

“Your Majesty,” said Lady Danbury.

Penelope sank instinctively into a curtsy, still getting her racing heart under control.

“Lady Danbury,” said Charlotte. “A lovely affair, as usual. And we greatly appreciate your extension of a general invitation to the officers in London. Although—” the queen’s voice lowered conspiratorially. “I particularly appreciate it on behalf of my Lord Provost Marshal.”

Penelope’s curtsy wobbled and her heart raced again at the man’s title, but she breathed deeply through her nose. He’s not here, she told herself firmly.

The queen’s voice remained low, for Lady Danbury and Penelope’s ears only. “It seems he has unexpectedly developed an eye for a certain young lady, and I suspect there will be wedding bells by the end of the season.”

“As you know, ma’am, I am always happy to facilitate matchmaking,” said Lady Danbury. “Who might this lucky young lady be?”

“He hasn’t given me her name yet. Do you credit the impertinence?”

“We shall keep an eye on his dance partners tonight—I presume he dances?”

“He does, and quite competently too,” said Charlotte. “He has promised me the first, in fact.”

“Well then, we shall have to open the floor soon,” Lady Danbury declared.

“Nearly immediately, I should think. Come, Lady Danbury,” said Charlotte. The two older women swept off, leaving Penelope still in her wobbly curtsy, eyes fixed on the middle distance without really seeing anything.

“Straighten up. You’re going to cause a scene mantling like that,” scolded her owl.

“He’s here. He’s here, and I missed him,” thought Penelope, frantic.

“You didn’t see the fox, but you also haven’t been eaten. Find a vantage point and hunt. We are not prey.”

Taking a deep breath and fisting her hands in her skirts, Penelope finally rose. Her knees creaked audibly, and she swallowed down a gasp hard. Her owl was right; she may not have seen the fox enter the henhouse, but she knew he was there. If she could find him first—

“Pen!” Colin’s voice derailed her train of thought, and Penelope spun in a full circle as she dithered between walking away and greeting him.

Stopping before her and offering her a polite bow, Colin’s eyebrow raised as he took in her face. “Are you feeling all right, Pen? You look positively distracted.”

Not knowing what else to do, Penelope laughed. She was trying for the light, airy sound of an amused debutante. Her owl hiding her head under a wing told Penelope that she had landed somewhere embarrassingly south of that.  “You know me, Colin. Always a wallflower. I always find rooms this crowded distracting.”

“Really? I often thought you were at your most focused at balls. You get a particular look on your face as you look out across the room, something like a general reviewing their forces and deciding where they are most needed.”

The blush was starting on her chest, and Penelope was suddenly deeply grateful for the spencer hiding her bosom. Perhaps if she was lucky, the blush would stop short of her face and Colin would never know how positively flustered she was that he noticed her. Nobody noticed her.

“The hunter noticed us,” said her owl. That stopped the blush cold.

“Well...I...”

“I came to ask if you would dance the first with me,” said Colin, when Penelope’s voice petered off. “The queen has arrived, and the floor should be open soon. I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot with you the last few times we have met, and I should like to repair our friendship. Please dance with me, Pen?”

Before she could respond, the music stopped and there was a loud, echoing thud of walking stick on hollow dais. The chatter ceased, and all heads—including Colin and Penelope’s—turned to the end of the room. Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte were center stage, smiling.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” declared Lady Danbury. “I welcome one and all to the first Danbury ball of the season. Many thanks to Her Majesty for her gracious presence. It is my honor to allow her to open the dance floor. Musicians, awake your fingers, strike!”

The conductor tapped his baton and cued the orchestra as a tall, blond man in regimentals strode smoothly to the dais, bowed to the queen, and offered her his hand. She took it with a smile, stepping down to the dance floor to begin the opening measures of the first dance.

Before she realized that she had clutched Colin’s hand in fear, he had taken it as her assent to dance with him, and a long moment later, she was following him onto the floor with a rush of other couples. Her movements were automatic, so much so that she and Colin were several steps into the dance before she realized what they were doing. She and Colin always danced, sometimes twice in an evening, and had since her first season. Dancing with him felt familiar, felt safe. Even if she there was some part of her that was still upset with him for his high-handedness and assertion that he would never marry her—and isn’t that silly, since I have no desire to marry him, she thought—his presence, his arms around her, his confidence as he led her through the steps of the dance weren’t something she would ever voluntarily surrender.

As she watched his face, she found herself calming down. Dancing with Colin was always her favorite part of a ball, and losing that to worry would be tragic. There was only the two of them on the dance floor. She could lose herself in this moment, this dance, with Colin. They didn’t bother speaking during that first dance, despite the fact that they often had some of their best conversations on the floor. Tonight, they simply danced together, enjoying each others’ company and feeling that something between them was repaired without the need for words. Neither needed words to follow the other through the dance. Truthfully, they barely needed eyes. Every move, every spin, every catch and released of gloved hands was precisely where it needed to be when it needed to be there. There was never a doubt, never a misstep, just partners perfectly matched.

Far too soon the music was ending, and the couples on the floor were bowing and curtsying to each other. Colin had not let go of Penelope’s hand. They walked in silence, hand in hand, over to one of the refreshment tables where Colin was forced to drop Pen’s hand to collect a pair of lemonade glasses. She stayed with him, however, and the two of them found themselves seated, drinks in hand, in an out of the way corner of the ballroom. 

“Are you recovered from your encounter with your sister?” Colin asked, abruptly breaking the spell with speech.

“With my...” It took Penelope a moment to remember how she had explained away her bruises to Colin. “Oh. Yes, thank you. The bruises are healing nicely. They should be gone in another week or so.”

“Good, good. It didn’t occur to me that you might not want to dance because of them until you had already taken my hand and then it seemed...” Colin had tensed up, and looked as though he were wrestling with himself, and Penelope held her silence, letting him lead.

“Well. Dancing with you is one of my favorite pastimes at balls, and I must say that I would be loath to give up the pleasure.”

“I enjoy dancing with you as well, Colin. Has Eloise forgiven you for trying to chaperone us in the park?”

That question earned her a groan and an overall relaxation from him. “Eloise has yet to let me forget it, and I was lectured by Anthony, Kate, and Mother about it later. As Shakespeare’s Benedick said, ‘I stood like a man at a mark with a whole army shooting at me!’ You’d think they’d give a fellow a break.”

“Your mama won’t stop until she has you settled down,” said Penelope.

“Oh, don’t say that,” said Colin. “I and every other younger son became targets for every matchmaking mama with a daughter she doesn’t want married off to a soldier this season, thanks to Lady Danbury’s invitation to the officers. I can hardly imagine what she means by it.”

“I’m sure it was simply good manners.” Penelope was not willing to discuss what she had certainly not been meant to overhear between the queen and Lady Danbury.

“Hardly. The war with Bonaparte has been going on since the year three, and no general invitation has been issued in London in all those years,” protested Colin.

Engrossed in their discussion, neither Colin nor Penelope heard the footsteps that came toward them, and large ornamental fern obscured their view until the visitor was right on top of them.

“If you will forgive the interruption, Miss Featherington,” came a voice that Penelope dreaded hearing in her nightmares. She didn’t—quite—drop her lemonade, but it was a near thing.

“I apologize for startling you,” said Lord Mowbray. “Had I seen how focused upon your conversation you were, I should have offered more warning. Mr. Bridgerton,” he said, with a polite nod to Colin.

Colin neither returned the nod nor deigned to respond. Instead, he looked directly at Mowbray’s face, and then rose from his chair only to stoop and studiously adjust one of his boots.

Penelope nearly gasped. The cut direct was rude enough, but it was used in polite company from time to time if an offense so warranted it—or if someone was embroiled in scandal. The cut infernal, however, was so rarely offered to one gentleman by another that the last time Penelope could remember it being deployed, the resulting duel had required crown intervention. Mowbray’s actions the last time the two had seen each other hardly warranted such behavior. In fact, had Penelope seen such a thing across a ballroom, Lady Whistledown would have written about it with such emphasis that the paper the story was printed on would have been in danger of combusting.

“Colin,” she breathed. If Mowbray took offense, if he called Colin out...the consequences were too dire to imagine.

Mowbray barely acknowledged the cut infernal. One eyebrow twitched, but then he turned his full attention to Penelope.

“I will be brief, Miss Featherington, so as to not inappropriately disrupt your conversation. I am here to ask you to dance. Have you space left on your dance card?”

“Well, I...yes,” she said somewhat lamely, trapped by the rules of polite society into lifting her wrist so Mowbray could take her card in his hand and swiftly sign his name to it. Having done so, he bowed politely to her.

“I shall return to fetch you at the appointed time,” he said, before walking away to leave Colin and Pen alone again. Where they had been alone and relatively unobserved before, however, Penelope could now feel the eyes of the ballroom on them.

“Whatever were you thinking?” she hissed at Colin.

“You cannot possibly mean to dance with him,” said Colin through gritted teeth.  

“Never mind whether or not I mean to dance with him, you are lucky he didn’t call you out! Especially after he prevented that phaeton from hitting Eloise and I. And then there is the fact that he is the Lord Provost Marshal. You cannot snub him that badly in public, Colin.”

“Well perhaps he is less the war hero than people might think!”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Yes, you wouldn’t want anyone else to notice this little argument and ask what spawned it, would you?” asked Benedict, voice uncharacteristically serious as he stopped and towered over Penelope and Colin.

“What do you want?” asked Colin, rudely.

“Anthony says we’re going home.”

“Now? The party has just started—”

“And you’re lucky that it was only Anthony who saw what you just pulled. For God’s sake, Colin, what if the queen had seen you give Mowbray the cut infernal? Have you any idea of the consequences?” Benedict had a hand on his brother’s shoulder, trying to unobtrusively prompt him to rise. It was decidedly ineffective.

“I know the entire ton considers him a hero—”

“And one who did a service to this family when he stopped Eloise getting run down—”

“But how is terrorizing those with the misfortune to be shifters in any way heroic?” Colin’s face was reddening now, but he wasn’t backing down or going quietly.

Penelope’s face was equally red, if the burning she felt was anything to go by, and her eyes flicked out to the rest of the room as best they could. If Colin and Benedict didn’t move soon, others would take notice, and the Bridgertons would lose their window to escape the situation with their social standing intact. And she didn’t want to think too hard about the phrase “with the misfortune to be shifters,” either.

“I am not a misfortune,” her owl piped up.

“No, if anything you’re a blessing, but right now I need to save Colin from himself,” Penelope replied. Her owl subsided, chuffing quietly to herself in Pen’s head.

Lady Danbury was out of sight, as were Violet and Anthony Bridgerton, so Penelope could not leverage them for help. If she could contrive a situation in which he would go under his own power...

When the solution hit her, Penelope almost groaned aloud. The occasional debutante with a fragile constitution had been known to be overcome with heat and emotion at a ball, but that was far less common than a lady swooning for attention. Cressida Cowper in particular had leveraged a swoon to great effect during their first season, and Lady Whistledown herself had commended Cressida’s timing, finesse...and aim. Particularly after another debutante that year had failed to aim or time her swoon correctly—the unfortunate girl’s intended suitor had been too far away to catch her and she had been too close to the edge of a table when she went down. The bruising had faded quickly, but she still styled her hair to cover the faint scar the corner of the ornate table had left on her temple.

Penelope had sworn to herself that she would never swoon intentionally, but if she seemed a little unbalanced now, Colin wouldn’t hesitate to walk her out for some air. That such a walk would also handily remove him from the ballroom was simply an incidental perk, naturally. Unsure how else to begin, Penelope raised a hand to fan herself. 

“My it is warm in here...” she tried. Colin and Benedict roundly ignored her, still arguing sotto voce.

Rolling her eyes, Penelope tried again. Slightly louder this time.

“I am feeling a bit lightheaded...” Still nothing from the Bridgertons. Fine, she thought. Let’s really get their attention. She stood, and took a step forward. Then she stopped, reconsidering for a moment. A second step took her closer to Benedict, into his peripheral vision. Rather than dropping to the floor, she stepped again, but mimicked a stumble that sent her bumping into Benedict. She had mistimed or misaimed something in her pretense, however, as she bounded off Benedict and truly lost her balance on the rebound, arms pinwheeling as she fought to stay up.

Before she could truly fall, Colin had clasped one of her flailing hands and pulled her into him. Both his arms encircled her, holding her up and very nearly taking her feet from the floor. His eyes searched her face, worry in the tension of his jaw. For her part, Penelope was suddenly and inexplicably breathless, heart hammering in her chest. A warmth that seemed to have little to do with the temperature bloomed in her chest.

“Are you all right, Pen?”

Colin’s voice reminded her that she had a job to do, and she squirmed a little, as though his grip were too tight. In reality, he could have held her tighter and she wouldn’t have complained, but her plan was only half enacted.

“It’s just overly warm in here. I found myself lightheaded. Perhaps some fresh air?”

“Yes of course.” Colin threaded one of Penelope’s arms through his, guiding her through the room. Benedict took her other arm, and when Colin’s head was turned, he looked at Penelope and mouthed “Thank you.” She didn’t see his signal to Anthony, but the entire Bridgerton family was waiting when the trio stepped outside. Anthony’s face was pure leashed fury, and he had a firm hand on Colin’s shoulder before Colin registered his presence.

Abruptly, Penelope stood alone in the cool night air, lacking her Bridgerton escort as they climbed into their carriages and pulled away. She thought she could hear raised voices before the clatter of hooves and distance drowned them out. With a sigh, she sank onto a stone bench, stripped off her gloves—short ones, rather than the typical elbow-length evening gloves, to better fit with the spencer she was somehow still wearing—and dropped her face into her hands.

Where on earth had that come from? Of the Bridgerton brothers, Colin had a reputation for being the amiable one. Anthony had well-known sharp edges and Benedict could be merciless when it came to art, but Colin? He was a favorite of debutantes, mamas, and gentlemen alike because he could get along with anyone and everyone with no apparent effort and often went out of his way to be kind.

“Unless he’s being ‘kind’ about people like us,” said her owl. “You only ever mind careless disparagement of shifters when he does it.”

"That is patently untrue,” replied Penelope. “I’m always upset when someone publishes a pointless hate piece about shifters.”

"It’s not the same and you know it.” Penelope had no answer to that, so she simply massaged her temples to try to head off the first warning signs of a headache.

A sudden, snapped “Penelope” undid all of that work, however, and the headache descended as the summoned girl lifted her head from her hands.

Portia stood in the spill of light from the open door, hands on her hips, a scowl on her face. “Put your gloves on this instant, and come inside. I cannot believe you had the nerve to keep the Lord Provost Marshal waiting for a dance! Have you any idea what kind of a match that would be?”

Penelope stopped dead, shocked. “A match?” Portia swung around to face her daughter, eye narrowed. In a gesture that could be mistaken for motherly concern from a distance, Portia dug her fingers into both of Penelope’s shoulders, her nose barely an inch from her daughter’s.

“One more word, Penelope, and you will not see the light of day again until the ship I put you on reaches Ireland and your cousins open the crate I nailed you into. This could be advantageous for your sisters and for our family, and I will not allow you to ruin it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama,” breathed Penelope. Portia released her shoulders, and dragged Penelope by the arm back into the ballroom.

“Ah, Lord Mowbray!” Portia called, waving a fuchsia-gloved hand. “I have found my young lady, she was simply collecting herself. But here she is, as promised, for your dance.”

The titters from the debutantes around her—and a few sounds that would have been described as snorts had they not come from the debutantes’ mamas—made Penelope blush red again, but she held her shoulders straight and her chin level. The other ladies’ derision could not be allowed to shatter her calm; she could not afford to grow sufficiently stressed to shift tonight.

Mowbray appeared not to hear the giggles around him, and they faded quickly in his wake. He bowed politely to both women, greeting them quietly before offering his arm to Penelope.

Taking the offered arm was...strangely normal. For a man who had been an enemy to her and those like her as well as the object of her nightmares, his arm, encased in its red wool sleeve, felt just the arms of the countless other men she had danced with. And unlike most of the men she had danced with, who generally seemed to forget that she was short, Mowbray matched his pace to a comfortable stride length for her when normally she was taking two or three steps for every one of her partners’.

Once they were out of Portia’s earshot, Mowbray halted, looking down at Penelope. “I had no desire to cause upset where your mother might hear; she seemed quite invested in our dance. But you were taking air, are you feeling well enough to dance? I should hate for you to faint on the dance floor and would happily release you should you require rest.”

He had noticed where she had come from? How closely had he been watching her? The thought of his eyes on her was chilling in principle; he could easily ruin her life if he caught her shifting. And yet, there was also something...vaguely flattering about someone noticing her. As a wallflower in her third season, Penelope was used to standing right next to people, listening to their secrets, without them so much as glancing in her direction.

“You are kind, but I am perfectly fine,” she said, relying on social niceties to cover her conflicting emotions.

“Very well. And you have my appreciation for not leaving me jilted at the edge of the dance floor,” he replied.

“Social ridicule is always a challenging draught to swallow,” said Penelope as she placed her free hand on Mowbray’s upper arm—as high as she could reach, the man had to have been an inch taller than Colin.

“It sounds as though you know something of it.” Mowbray’s hand captured her as they took their positions for the waltz.

They were positioned at a perfectly polite distance from each other, and Penelope felt none of the cheeky or malicious pressure in Mowbray’s frame that would try to drag her closer to him than she wanted to be. That was a particular favorite game of young gentlemen newly entered into society who believed that they could woo a debutante who had little interest in them by force. After a disastrous waltz in her first season where the gentleman in question had nearly pulled her off her feet for nearly five minutes straight, Penelope had refused to undertake the dance with anyone who wasn’t a Bridgerton. Had she been paying attention to where Mowbray signed his name on her dance card, she would have objected. She hadn’t noticed, but this seemed a promising beginning.

“I am in my third season, my lord.”

“Astounding. I should have thought that your mother would be enthusiastically engaged in seeing you and your sisters partnered.”

“My sisters, yes,” said Penelope, hoping to cut that line of questioning off without having to admit that Portia thought she would end a spinster.

“Ah. Well, I sympathize with them,” said Mowbray, gently but firmly guiding Penelope through the opening steps of the dance. “Her Majesty is rather a Mrs. Bennet to me whenever I am in town.”

Penelope’s surprise must have shown on her face, because Mowbray laughed quietly.

“Yes, I do read novels. A friend sends them to me when I am in the field. You would be amazed at how much time even the Lord Provost Marshal has to read when on campaign. A soldier’s life is not all battles and parades.” He glanced to either side, then winked cheekily. “Pray, do not out me to my fellows. If you think social ridicule among the ton is bad, I wouldn’t dare regale you with the mischief my men get into when they are bored and see an easy target.”

That actually drew a laugh from Penelope as she spun out and back into her partner.

“If they get up to anything like what bored gentlemen do here, I should shudder to imagine it,” she said.

“Better here than on a battlefield on the continent,” said Mowbray, expression clouding over before he caught himself. “My apologies, Miss Featherington. There is no need to expose a lady to such things.”

Unsure how to respond, Penelope was silent for the next few steps.

“I fear I have rather put my foot in it. May we begin again? It seems that you too have read Pride and Prejudice. What did you think of it?” Mowbray had guided them to a largely empty corner of the dance floor, where they were in less danger of being overheard in general.

“I enjoyed it,” said Penelope. “Although if the book strikes me in the wrong mood, I rather feel for Charlotte and Lydia.”

“Clergymen and soldiers are not your idea of attractive husbands?”

“I hope I am not so shallow as to judge a man purely by his profession,” protested Penelope.

“Yes, because heaven forfend you judge a shifter hunter and murderer by his profession,” sniped her owl. Penelope ignored the voice in her head, continuing, “Should the match be good, I would think profession matters little. But the match between people must be good.”

“Matching personality is a challenge,” agreed Mowbray. “Particularly—if I may be so bold—when that personality is both belligerent and childish.”

He meant Colin. Penelope didn’t know how she knew it, but she did, even as she asked, “That is censure indeed. Have you a particular person in mind attached to such a personality?”

Mowbray missed his next step, but managed to avoid treading on Penelope’s toes.

“I shall risk being unfashionably blunt, Miss Featherington. My intention is to pay court to you, but I have no wish to intrude should another have expressed his interest in you. You and Mr. Colin Bridgerton seemed somewhat...familiar. I noticed the two of you dancing the first, and then he quite naturally seemed to hold your attention afterward. If he has expressed any formal intentions toward you, please be so kind as to tell me—I shall leave off my suit.”

“Intentions? Colin? No!” Penelope blurted out, before realizing the implications of her answer. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a wave of terror began to rise.

“And yet you refer to him by his Christian name?”

“I have been friends with the Bridgerton family for most of my life.”

The music floated to a close, contrasting with the sudden weight Penelope felt envelop her as Mowbray released her and bowed politely. She offered him a curtsy, and the pair walked side-by-side from the dance floor.

“My thanks for the pleasure of your company this evening, Miss Featherington,” said Mowbray. He offered her a second bow and then moved to speak with a small group of gentlemen and officers.

Penelope spent the rest of the ball in a daze. She neither danced again nor checked for shifter activity or idle gossip. The thudding of her heart against her ribs was a constant, distracting tattoo, and her mind was, quite simply, paralyzed as it waited for the wave of terror that had sprouted during her dance with Mowbray to break. Her owl tried to break through the paralysis a few times, but to no avail. All through the interminable carriage ride home and getting changed from ball gown to nightdress, Penelope was numb, waiting.

The first sign that she was returning to herself was an inability to sit still. The reading chair next to her fireplace—normally a cozy retreat—felt as though it was trying to aggressively suck her into the padding like upholstered quicksand. The hard wooden desk chair felt bruising within a breath of sitting down, and she fumbled opening her jar of ink so badly that she ruined several sheets of paper without even picking up her quill. Lying down on her bed felt too vulnerable, too lonely, so Penelope paced. And paced. And paced some more.

Just as her little mantelpiece clock chimed three in the morning, Penelope shifted.

She didn’t dare fly out of her window, much as she wanted to feel the night wind on her face and offer a barn owl’s shrill cry to the moon to release some of the pent-up emotion in her. Instead she flew tight, precise circles around the room. Finally, finally the wave broke, and Penelope fell back to her bed in owl form, wrapping her wings around herself and letting tears flow.

I had fun, she thought, pain shooting through her chest. It had been nice to be held politely and spoken to with respect. It had been nice to have someone pay attention to what she wanted and needed. It had been nice to feel included in society, even just for the space of a waltz. And what had made it even better was that someone had been interested in her, had wanted to talk to her without prompting from their mother. Had spoken and danced with her not out of pity or obligation or even because they had known her for years, but because she was more than just a wallflower. She was someone worth knowing.

And it was all destined to come crashing down because she was a shifter, and the person who had seen her, had wanted to see her, was the man tasked by the crown to control or exterminate people like her. What on earth was wrong with her that the only attention she could command was from someone who wouldn’t think twice about sending her to a hideous death?

And to have enjoyed the attention? Shame overwhelmed her, muffling coherent thought.

“We are enough,” her owl cooed gently. “In this form, in your human form. Whatever shape we take, we are enough.”

“It was easier when he was just a nightmare. When I didn’t know he liked books and made jokes. How could I have enjoyed dancing with him tonight?”

Her owl had no response to that and merely held space with Penelope as she wallowed in self-revulsion, long past the point where she had realized she was doing it to avoid thinking of Colin and his actions that night. Eventually, she rose from the bed and settled at her desk. She had one more thing to do that night.

When she came downstairs the next morning, next to her cup of tea was a new issue of Whistledown and a bouquet of pink roses from Lord Mowbray.

Chapter Text

1813 – England

Dearest Gentle Reader,

When a girl puts a doll on a shelf, there are generally two reasons to take it down again: to discard it or out of nostalgia once one has given up all hope of playing with dolls again. When a debutante goes on the shelf, she all too often experiences a third fate: being forgotten. So, dear reader, you can imagine the general surprise when Miss Penelope Featherington—forgotten little doll in a yellow dress—was seemingly pulled from the shelf by her very own tin soldier.

Yes, Miss Featherington was spotted waltzing with the Lord Provost Marshal, who is returned from the fields of the continent for the season. Whatever his political excuse for returning—surely something terribly uninteresting to do with the legislation governing England’s response to shifters abroad—it seems clear that his personal reasons for returning now involve courtship...and even matrimony!  

This author is nevertheless compelled to ask what our tin soldier sees in a doll that has been gathering dust on a shelf when he could have his pick of lovely dolls in blush pink dresses. And one must wonder what the queen thinks of all this. No doubt she has her own reasons, but surely she would prefer to see her Lord Provost Marshal with a more suitable candidate in the marriage mart.

— Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

Lord Mowbray danced with Penelope twice at the Cowper’s ball the following week.

Out of politeness, he danced the first with Cressida. Penelope rather thought Colin was going to ask her to dance the first, until Anthony and Benedict stepped up to flank their brother. Then Portia dragged Penelope to a quiet corner of the ballroom for last-minute instructions about how she ought to capture the Lord Provost Marshal, abandoning an astonished Prudence and Philippa.

Roundly ignoring Portia’s questionable-at-best advice on how to catch a man, Penelope instead carefully reviewed the ballroom. There were shifters missing. It was too early in the season for any of the snubs or petty grievances that would mean someone was not invited to a given party or ball, and generally speaking, shifters were careful to ensure that they were social enough to fly beneath the radar. Even a brief scan of the room tonight, however, revealed at least five missing shifters, sometimes with their families. Notable among the absent shifters was Miss Chatworth—the season’s diamond—and her family. Penelope had to work not to wince when she realized that the Chatworths had to be avoiding Mowbray rather than simply absent for whatever polite excuse they’d given Lady Cowper. None of the shifter families had forgotten Miss Euphemia, and apparently Miss Chatworth, or her parents, did not believe she could maintain a polite face under such circumstances.

Small wonder that Lady Cowper—standing by the musicians and surveying her domain—looked as if she were sucking lemons. To be snubbed by the season’s diamond, no matter how politely, would feel like a personal attack to the woman. Although Penelope understood the impulse to hide until Mowbray went back to the continent, the entire community couldn’t hide. That would be nearly as damning as all of them shifting at once. She would have to send some gentle reminders about that.

The Bridgertons were in attendance, Penelope noted. Eloise was at Violet’s side, and the two were whispering fiercely, although Violet looked somewhat distracted, and her gaze kept drifting toward where Anthony stood with one hand on a browbeaten-looking Colin’s shoulder. Apparently after his little stunt at the last ball, Colin was being quite thoroughly babysat. Idly, Penelope wondered if Anthony would let Colin dance at all that night. She would miss dancing with him, if not. Kate was chatting with a group of married ladies, and Benedict was on the dance floor with someone, as were Daphne and Simon. Francesca was off in a corner chatting with someone—Penelope rather thought it might be the young count of Kilmartin.

A reticule slamming into her leg with no small amount of force pulled Penelope from her thoughts and centered her focus on her mother’s face. 

“Here he comes,” Portia said, not nearly quietly enough. “If you can at all manage to be flirtatious and charming, do. If you cannot, remember than there is more than one path to the altar.”

“Mama!” Penelope couldn’t stop the horrified outburst, but there was no time for any other response, because suddenly Lord Mowbray was there and politely bowing to them, and Penelope and Portia were offering polite curtsies in response.

For some reason, Penelope’s eyes flitted back to where Colin had been standing with Anthony as she dipped her curtsy. His eyes were hard chips of sea ice in a flushed face. Anthony’s fingers were digging divots into the shoulder of Colin’s suit jacket, and he had broken off his conversation to focus on his brother. Their heads were together, and although she was too far away to hear, she could see Anthony rapidly speaking into Colin’s ear. Something twisted in Penelope’s stomach—she barely remembered to paste a polite smile on her face before she rose to meet Mowbray’s conversation.

“Lady Featherington, Miss Penelope,” he began. “I hope you are both enjoying your evening?”

“Quite,” answered Portia. “And you, my lord? After the battlefields of the continent, I imagine you find London society somewhat dull?”

“Rather a different kind of battlefield, if truth be told, my lady. After all, the courage to face down a French column may be different from that required to ask a lovely lady to dance, but gathering it requires the same effort.”

Portia laughed politely, snapping open her hand fan to flutter it at herself, which gave Mowbray an opening to turn to Penelope.

“Miss Featherington, I was hoping to ask you to join me in two dances this evening. I so enjoyed our waltz at the Danbury ball, and I wish additional time to become acquainted with you. Have you space on your dance card?”

“She certainly does,” answered Portia, going so far as to take her daughter’s arm and thrust it at the man. Penelope thought she might die of embarrassment then and there, and had to quell an impulse to check whether Colin was privy to her humiliation. If he was seeing this, she truly did not want to know.

“There you are, Mowbray!” came a deep voice as another man in an officer’s uniform joined their little party. He was older than Mowbray, with grey streaks at his temples giving him a distinguished look. There was a row of medals on his red coat that rivaled Mowbray’s, and he was rather blatantly watching Portia. Continuing, he asked, “Won’t you introduce me to these lovely ladies?”

“Colonel Cole, may I introduce Lady Featherington and her daughter, Miss Penelope Featherington? Ladies, this is Colonel Cole. He is the man responsible for my travel up the ranks and any social connections I have to my name.” The requisite bows and curtsies were exchanged, with Cole going so far as to take Portia’s gloved hand and lift it to his lips.

“Lady Featherington, would it be terribly scandalous of me to steal you away?” Cole asked. “I have not had a dance in far too long, and I cannot imagine so lovely a woman would be anything less than grace on the floor.” Portia went pink—although Penelope rather thought it was surprise more than flattery—dropped Penelope’s arm, and accompanied the colonel, leaving Penelope and Mowbray alone. She did not so much as glance back.

 “Distract and redirect truly does work as well at balls as it does on the battlefield,” murmured Mowbray. “I owe the Colonel a very large favor.”

“I feel I should apologize for my mama,” began Penelope.

“Oh, please don’t. I rather thought you looked as if a rescue was in order, and I was more than happy to oblige. I also wanted to ask you if you had a preference for our second dance tonight. In truth, Miss Featherington, waltzes are my favorite, but if you have another preference, I should like to know and honor it.”

“Oh well…” Penelope hesitated, unsure of what to say. Mowbray stood, patient and attentive. He didn’t sigh or tap his foot, or look inconvenienced.

“The quadrille,” she finally said.

“Lovely, then I shall reserve you for both dances.” Penelope lifted her wrist to give him access to her dance card automatically—she was too distracted by the pit that had suddenly opened in her stomach. She and Colin always danced the quadrille. True, there was no formal understanding between them, but it was something of a tradition, and the reason the quadrille was her favorite was—if she were to be truly honest with herself—because she danced it with Colin. If Mowbray just speaking to her was enough to make the ever-charming and amiable Colin Bridgerton forget himself in public, how would Colin react to her dancing their dance with Mowbray?

“Does what he thinks matter so much to you?” asked her owl. “You keep insisting that you and he are simply friends. Surely a friend wouldn’t begrudge you one dance.”

“You are not helping, it is more complex than that,” snapped Penelope. Her owl simply didn’t respond as Mowbray released Penelope’s wrist.

“Would you care to take a turn about the room before our dance?” Mowbray asked, offering his arm.

Good manners dictated the polite yes and the arm Penelope threaded through Mowbray’s, as they slowly walked the perimeter of the room. She was quiet for the first while, feeling untethered and uncertain. After several minutes of agonizing silence, Mowbray looked down at her.

“You seem uncharacteristically quiet tonight, Miss Featherington. Did I perhaps misread our prior interactions? I would hate to make you uncomfortable.”

No, you didn’t misread them, she thought. And you do make me uncomfortable. You don’t think I should be allowed to exist. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say any of that. If she wanted to avoid arrest and conscription, she had to banish her shifter side from the front of her mind. She had to simply be Miss Featherington, ordinary debutante. Which was rather easier said than done.

“I suppose I am simply unused to the attention,” she said. It was not a lie, per se. She had had precious little of this kind of attention in her three seasons.

“It is baffling to me how the other gentlemen here could fail to see your attributes,” said Mowbray, with surprising passion. “Miss Featherington, in our admittedly brief acquaintance, I have found you to be self-possessed, articulate, and witty. These are vanishingly rare qualities in gentlemen who are expected to have them, and rarer still in most of the young ladies of my acquaintance. I have no desire for a wife who is not my equal, and in you, Miss Featherington, I believe I have found someone who could be not simply the mother of my children, but a true partner with whom to face the trials of life. If other gentlemen cannot see that, the fault is in their eyes, not your star.” Mowbray paused, eyes widening, as if he had not meant to make any such declaration. Having passed the point of no return, however, he continued.

“I am even less equipped to woo you than Henry the fifth was to woo his Katherine, Miss Featherington. He protested he spoke in plain soldier while speaking as a king; I truly have only the plain speech of a soldier to offer you. And I fear that in so doing, I have further discomfited you with attentions to which you are unaccustomed.”

Deeply flustered, Penelope grasped for the only thing from Mowbray’s startling speech that she felt she could manage. “I would not have taken you for a fan of Shakespeare,” she said. “And yet here you are, practically quoting him. I believe that was Julius Caesar in addition to Henry V, was it not? Tell me, do all officers have such a thorough knowledge of our great playwright, or is this a particular interest of yours?”

The introductory bars of the waltz music drifted through the air, and both Mowbray and Penelope started. With a promise to explain on the dance floor, Mowbray took Penelope’s hand and they nearly ran to secure a place before the dance began in earnest.

As they waltzed together—with Penelope still held easily at a polite distance—Mowbray relayed stories of men competing to recite passages from Shakespeare during long nights, and even a deeply comedic story from his early days of soldiering in which his regiment had been tasked to raise morale by mounting a production of comedic scenes from the corpus of Shakespeare’s works.

A blushing admission of being forced to use the head of a mop as a wig and stumbling so badly over the hem of the too-long skirt Mowbray had worn to play Rosalind that he had knocked over three of his fellow actors had Penelope laughing so much that she drew sharp looks from other couples. By the end of the waltz, Penelope was breathless from laughter—and from something that wasn’t laughter and couldn’t possibly be anything approaching affection.

Yet when Mowbray rose from his bow to take her hand in his and lift it for a kiss, the rest of the room seemed to fall away, so that there was only the two of them in the world. As she panted for breath, Penelope felt the mood shift. She couldn’t be having this moment, not with this man. The world hadn’t disappeared so much as the ground was falling away, and if she didn’t look down, make sure it was where she thought it was, then it would crumble beneath her feet and she would fall to wrack and ruin.

Lifting his gaze to meet her eyes, Mowbray hesitated. Something must have changed in her expression.

“Miss Featherington, are you quite well?” he asked.

“Penelope, there you are!”

Penelope had never been so grateful for Eloise’s lack of social graces and utter inability to read a moment. As Eloise skittered to a stop beside Penelope, she briefly dropped something that only the most generous person would call a curtsy in Mowbray’s general direction.

“You must excuse us my lord, but I simply must steal Penelope away from you.” Mowbray raised an eyebrow at Penelope, who shrugged back. Mowbray smiled.

“Of course, enjoy time with your friend. I shall find you before our next dance.” He bowed politely, and Eloise dragged Penelope away without another word.

“Are we never ever to be free of men who want to see us as ornamental objects?” she groused.

“Whatever do you mean?” asked Penelope, trying to pull her shattered composure back together with both hands and distinctly failing to do so.

“That Colonel Cole was not happy just dancing with your Mama. He has taken a turn with every matchmaking mama in attendance tonight! First it was your Mama, then Lady Cowper, then Lady Danbury, and now my Mama. Anthony’s face was deeply amusing, but honestly Pen, I cannot fathom a life where even after women have been married off and used to make as many babies as they can that they must still be forced into tiresome social customs that do little more than teach the next generation of young ladies that they must be pretty above all!”

“Lady Bridgerton seems to be enjoying herself,” Penelope observed. Violet Bridgerton had not danced with anyone but her sons since her husband’s death, but tonight she had broken her rule. And it was true, they were talking amiably while they danced, and Violet even laughed at some comment as Penelope watched.

“That is hardly the point, Penelope.”

“Well then what is the point? Dancing with a man is hardly a wholesale agreement with their politics, their beliefs, their careers…it is just a dance. It is a polite social activity that can just be fun! There ought not be a moral component to dancing, and one should not be judged and condemned for simply enjoying dancing!” Quite without her permission, Penelope’s voice rose and her face heated as she spoke. Her conflicted feelings about enjoying Mowbray’s company and her inability to remember that he was, for all intents and purposes, a monster, had bubbled up past her carefully built emotional dams and swept her friend’s point quite away in a flood of vitriol and hurt that had nothing to do with Eloise.

Eloise had actually stepped back from her friend, confusion tinged with hurt written across her face.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I need some air.” The room was too hot, too close, and Penelope did not have enough of a handle on her feelings to be safe. She turned and practically ran toward the doors to the verandah. Clearing the threshold, Penelope leaped the three shallow steps down to the grass border of the Cowper’s gardens, which included a small copse of trees. Their density and distance from the verandah offered Penelope a screen to hide behind as she shifted.

“This is too risky,” screeched her owl. “Shift back, what if someone saw you leave?”

Ignoring this excellent advice, Penelope launched herself into the air and flew toward the moon. She let the wind rush over, around, and through her feathers, soothing her. There was nothing complicated whatsoever about flight. No moral dilemmas, no war between loneliness and the wrong source of attention. No requirement to just be her human self, to bisect her identity and hide part of it away. She could simply be, one with the air and the sky, and not terrified because she was too weak to avoid being charmed by a man who had featured in her literal nightmares for years and who could ruin not only her life, but the lives of her sisters and every other shifter in London. If she flew fast enough, flew straight enough, flew high enough, she could escape her shame and self-loathing.

If she had been paying more attention, the raven would never have slammed into her, taking her out of the sky and back down to the Cowper’s gardens. The raven backwinged before they hit the ground, ensuring that they landed softly enough not to bruise. As soon as her talons were firmly on the ground, Portia shifted back to her human form.

Penelope followed suit quickly; the odds of someone seeing two birds collide in midair and fall to the ground were not terribly high, but given the number of eyes and Lord Mowbray’s presence, it had been a terribly risky maneuver.

“Go back in the ballroom, Penelope.” Portia’s voice was absolutely flat, which heralded an extremely poor reaction when they were safely home. Yet even given the warning in her Mama’s voice, Penelope suddenly wasn’t sure she could go back in. Wasn’t sure she could continue to be half of herself.

“Please don’t make me dance with him again,” she said. Portia’s eyes widened.

“What did you say?”

“Please Mama, don’t make me dance with him again. He…he hunts shifters. I cannot pretend that I am not a shifter forever, I cannot live that lie. I cannot let him court—” her hand clapped over her traitorous mouth, but the damage was already done. Penelope hadn’t missed the light in Portia’s eyes—the one that said she had seen a path to respectability and financial security and would pursue it to the end, no matter the cost.

“He said he intended to court you?” Portia took hold of Penelope’s arms, fingernails digging in just as sharp as the talons of her raven form. “Penelope, he said it explicitly?”

Penelope’s owl was mantling and hissing in her head—it had never liked Portia. Unfortunately, the expression of aggression was distracting an already unraveling Penelope, so her “yes” popped out before she could think through the ramifications. Tears began to fill her eyes.

“No, no tears,” snapped Portia. “This is a more advantageous match for you than I had dared to dream of Penelope, and it will ensure that your sisters are well cared for, whether they find husbands of their own or not. You are absolutely forbidden from shifting or from doing anything to discourage Lord Mowbray’s attentions. If I have to drag you to the altar, I will.”

“Mama, he is responsible for the deaths of how many shifters?”

“That has no bearing on your future or your sisters’ wellbeing.”

“I rather think it does!”

Portia’s gloved hand covered Penelope’s mouth, cutting off her protests. “Not here, Penelope. Not another word. If I knew of a way to stop you from shifting—” the word was a barely shaped exhale— “I would use it. You will allow Mowbray to court you, and you will do nothing to sabotage this. I will be watching you like a hawk, and if I must contrive a compromising situation to make this marriage happen, do not think for an instant that I will hesitate. So you have two choices. You can behave and do this the easy way, or you can be dragged. What will it be?” Portia took her hand from Penelope’s mouth, staring holes into her daughter.

Penelope tried one last time. “Anyone else, please—”

“You truly want to do this the hard way?”

Penelope surrendered. “No, Mama.”

“Good girl. Now put a smile on your face. You certainly seem to enjoy dancing with the man, so allowing him to court you should be simple. Remember, I will be watching.” Portia gestured for Penelope to lead the way back into the ballroom.

Heart cracking into pieces, Penelope squared her shoulders, got control of her face, and walked past her Mama, back toward the doors spilling light and music out into the garden.

Back inside the Cowper’s ballroom, Penelope halted, unsure where to go or what to do with Portia over her shoulder. She couldn’t offer Eloise an apology for her outburst with her Mama in tow, and she could even less find Colin and lose herself in a conversation with him. She could only imagine the rebuke she would receive from Portia for spending time with another gentleman now. The idea that she would be cut off from Colin—both while she was being courted and likely after her marriage, if it required traveling with Mowbray—sent another pang through her already abused heart. Even if she had decided she didn’t want to marry Colin, she had never decided that she didn’t want his friendship, his companionship. To lose that on top of her shifting was too cruel to contemplate.

“Keep smiling,” came Portia’s sharp order in her ear. “And if you cannot manage a smile, at least put on a pleasant face. The ton is watching.”

Now that Portia had pointed it out, Penelope’s analytical brain ground into sufficient action that she could see it too. Mowbray was making his way through the crowd to her, and the eyes of the matchmaking mamas, the debutantes, and every gentleman in the room were either following Mowbray’s progress or else examining Penelope for any hint of a reaction they could glean. Eloise and Benedict Bridgerton were watching too, standing with Violet by the refreshment table. Eloise looked put out and uncertain, while Violet looked strangely calculating. Penelope was under a spotlight.

Anthony and Colin were nowhere to be seen, which perversely made taking Mowbray’s hand and allowing him to walk her back to the dance floor for the quadrille even more difficult. She kept reminding herself that not only did she and Colin have no formal understanding about their relationship to this dance—or their relationship in general, beyond common friendship—but also if she did not make this convincing, Portia would go out of her way to ensure that Penelope was compromised. And knowing Portia, whatever situation she plotted would be so patently transparent that the entire ton would see through it and Penelope would have to live with their disdain over the fact that Penelope had so failed in the marriage mart that her mother had felt forced to contrive something…

She had to stop. She would miss her steps if she kept spiraling, or worse, lose control completely and shift in the middle of the dance floor. The lights in here would blind her owl eyes, and she would be easy prey for the man whose hand she now held as the music struck up and—

“Miss Featherington?” Mowbray held her hands and was gently pulling her into the opening steps of the quadrille. “Are you truly well? You have seemed somewhat distracted tonight.”

“I am well, truly. I apologize, I have been distracted.”

“Is there anything I can do to address the cause of your distraction?”

“It is truly nothing, but thank you.”

“Perhaps I ought to dazzle you with my literary knowledge again?” he asked, spinning her out. That earned a genuine, if weak, smile from Penelope. Unfortunately, Mowbray never got to see that smile, because as he spun her back into him, she caught sight of none other than Colin Bridgerton striding toward them.

Colin moved fast. By the time Mowbray had registered Penelope’s shocked expression, and before Penelope could find words—of warning, censure, welcome, she wasn’t sure—Colin was there, tapping Mowbray on the shoulder.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, perfunctorily, as Mowbray spun to see who had interrupted them. “May I cut it?”

There was a long moment of silence, made worse by the fact that Penelope and Mowbray’s stillness on the floor had caused the couples nearest them to halt as well. The stillness rippled out, until every couple on the floor had stopped awkwardly, and even the music had come to a halt. Mowbray’s cool, even gaze held Colin’s the entire time, and the tension in the room stretched to the point where Penelope thought that either it must break or she would.

Finally, Mowbray broke the silence. “I rather think I have taken all the cuts from you I am inclined to, Bridgerton,” he growled. Then he seemed to start, and glancing down at Penelope, who was still in the circle of his arms. “That is, unless you would prefer...” he petered off. “I know you have been friends with the Bridgertons for many years. It is your decision, Miss Featherington.”

Why must he be so blastedly considerate? wondered Penelope. There was no graceful way out of this choice. If she danced with Colin, Portia might actually lock her in the cellar until she had arranged the worst possible marriage she could dream up for Penelope. Not to mention that if she chose Colin, it would be a clear signal that—depending on who was doing the interpreting—either Penelope did not care for Mowbray and had no wish to be courted by him or that she was acquiescing to Colin out of a sense of pity for him. Choosing Colin would inevitably mean one or both men would be humiliated, and she would be at the center of whatever scandal this blew up into.

If she did the reasonable, logical thing and chose to continue dancing with Mowbray, Colin would be humiliated, and given his recent behavior around Mowbray—Penelope spared a moment to curse herself for failing to discover the story behind that animosity—could not be counted on to understand why she hadn’t chosen him.

For a moment, Penelope genuinely considered swooning.

“Colin…” her voice was a thread. Mowbray heard it, and loosened his grip on her, but didn’t entirely release her. Had Colin heard her? Her head was spinning. She needed to get the words out before she actually fainted.

“You’re embarrassing me,” she said. The words sounded shatteringly loud in the Cowper ballroom with the musicians silent and every eye on the little trio on the dance floor, but Penelope wasn’t sure that Colin had heard her until his eyes widened.

Ever the charming young gentleman in public, his face fell into a neutral mask, but Penelope had known Colin too long not to catch every detail of the emotions behind his blue-green eyes. The shock lasted longer than she had thought it would, but rather than the anger she was expecting to see, there was fear. For a moment, belligerence returned; he wanted to fight with her, but then his eyes flicked left and right, taking in the eyes watching their little drama with varying flavors of predatory glee and horror. The last thing Penelope saw in Colin’s eyes before he gave her—very specifically her, he turned to give Mowbray his shoulder—the briefest of possible bows and retreated was shame.

Something raw and painful ripped through Penelope’s stomach as she watched Colin’s back fade into the crowd and Lady Cowper called for the musicians to resume. Penelope stumbled a little as she and Mowbray resumed their dance, and when she looked up to apologize, there was worry in her partner’s eyes.

“Miss Featherington, we can of course continue if you wish, but…would you like to sit down?” he asked.

She nodded, still feeling like the swoon she wouldn’t have dreamed of making on purpose was threatening to overwhelm her whether she liked it or not.

Suddenly, a warm arm was around her shoulders, and she was being guided off the dance floor. Mowbray’s ability to part a crowd with his presence alone was for one a blessing, and he casually collected two glasses of lemonade from the refreshment table as he guided her toward the small stone bench on the verandah. It was situated in the light spilling from the open doors and well within view of everyone in the ballroom, so they were entirely properly chaperoned while still away from the crush and bustle of the main party.

“You aren’t cold?” asked Mowbray as he sat her down and wrapped her fingers around a glass of lemonade.  

“No,” she said, sipping the lemonade and letting the tartness ground and refocus her.

“It seems that you and I share a preference for the fresh air over the closeness of the ballroom,” said Mowbray.

“The moonlight doesn’t whisper cruelly just out of earshot.” Penelope sighed. “Lord Mowbray, I should apologize—”

“No, you shouldn’t,” he said. “You are not responsible for another man’s conduct—no matter how reprehensible or ludicrous. I learned that the hard way, and I hold nothing of Mr. Bridgerton’s conduct to your account. I am sorry you were embarrassed.”

Taking a sip of her lemonade, Penelope fought back tears. She shouldn’t be so relieved that he didn’t blame her, but she was. Her own Mama would blame her for it later, and she was still expecting that Colin would as well, when she had done nothing more than dance with…

The queen’s shifter hunter. She couldn’t let herself forget what he was, no matter how attentive he was to her needs, no matter that he quoted Shakespeare and Austen to her, no matter that he seemed to care how she was.

Every interaction she had with Mowbray reminded her too much of how easily she and Colin used to be in their friendship. How they would dance and then find a place to talk and laugh and simply enjoy each other’s company as the ton faded into the background and there had only been Colin and the warmth between them.

But then he had brought marriage into it, declared he would never marry her, and brought their friendship crashing into a tailspin that it seemed they would never recover from. Colin had dismissed the idea that they could ever be more, and forced Penelope to reckon with her feelings about them.

Lord Mowbray was even patiently waiting for her to respond, not pushing, not insisting that she have an answer at the ready. He was simply there, sharing the night with her, and allowing her to choose how their relationship should proceed.

“We cannot have a relationship with him,” said her owl, deadly serious. “He would turn around and kill us without a second thought.”

“We might not have a choice,” Penelope responded. The owl had no rebuttal, knowing both Portia and her raven as well as Penelope did.

In the carriage home from the ball, Portia’s rant about Colin’s behavior—which Penelope had ceased hearing after about the sixth word—was rather unexpectedly interrupted by Philippa.

“But Mama,” she said. “Isn’t Lord Mowbray the person who shoots shifters when he finds them? Wouldn’t making Penelope marry him put all of us in more danger of being discovered, not less?”

Penelope’s jaw dropped. This was far more sense than she expected of her sisters, even in such serious circumstances. Unfortunately, Philippa slid back to her usual place in Pen’s estimation with her next words.

“Penelope shifts carelessly. Surely it would make more sense for me or Prudence to marry him? We haven’t shifted since we were girls.”

“And her goose and Prudence’s hen are miserable about it,” snorted Penelope’s owl.

“If I could have the man fall in love with you or Prudence I would have, but he seems bafflingly attached to Penelope,” said Portia, massaging her temples.

“Well, that doesn’t mean he won’t shoot all of us if she shifts in front of him,” said Prudence.

“Don’t be foolish,” snapped Portia. “All we have to do is get Penelope and Lord Mowbray married as soon as possible. He is the queen’s head shifter hunter; do you truly think he would survive the scandal of having married a shifter? He would lose his position, his status, his place in the army, possibly his title. No, he will not risk exposing any of us once he and Penelope are married, and this connection will help you young ladies find advantageous matches. If he wants Penelope, he shall have her.”

He might expose us all, thought Penelope. This man who quotes Shakespeare and believes in personal responsibility? I truly think he would take the social and personal consequences. Perhaps even more so if he feels I have been dishonest with him.

“I thought Colin Bridgerton wanted Penelope,” insisted Prudence, in the tone of an older sister trying to get a younger one in trouble. “They more or less spent two seasons together.”

“After his contemptible performance tonight, the Bridgertons will be lucky to maintain any shred of respectability,” declared Portia. “The Viscount himself could have his marriage annulled and offer for Penelope and I wouldn’t allow it after tonight.”

“What if Mr. Benedict Bridgerton offered for me?” giggled Philippa.

“I should hope he has more sense than that,” muttered Penelope. Not quietly enough, unfortunately. Portia’s glove was off her hand in a flash and she whacked Penelope’s shoulder with it.

“Do not be mean to your sisters,” she ordered. “And you are lucky you remembered yourself tonight, young lady, and rejected Colin. If you had danced with him, you’d be sleeping in the cellar tonight. Honestly, though, if you hadn’t led him on for two seasons, he might not have felt entitled to try to ruin your chances with Lord Mowbray.”

“I hardly led him on, Mama!”

“Do not raise your voice, Penelope. And what else could he have been expected to think with the amount of attention you paid him? But you have at least come to your senses now.”  

“What if you are wrong about him?” Penelope knew better than to ask the question. Knew that Portia had made up her mind and that there was no way out of a courtship, and even less way out of a marriage proposal, should one be offered. But something about Lord Mowbray told Penelope that having married the very thing he was tasked with discovering and using for the crown wouldn’t stop him from turning them over if ever she slipped while married to him. She had to try one more time. “What if being married to him isn’t enough to keep all of us safe?”

“Then being married to anyone else isn’t either, so you may as well marry for rank and money,” said Portia. “He is a Viscount, he outranks both the available Misters Bridgerton and a far number of available ton gentlemen too. I am finished discussing this, Penelope.”

As if on cue, the carriage stopped before the Featherington townhouse. Portia stepped down smartly, then chivvied her young ladies before her into the house.

Finally alone in her room after bathing, changing into her nightdress, and wrestling her curls into something resembling a braid, Penelope had finished her writing for the night. She still had no answer for Lady Twombley, whose brother was a wolf shifter and had not been heard from in days. The family had put it about that he was seriously ill and recovering at their country house, but Lady Twombley had written to Lady Whistledown begging for help locating him or obtaining news of his whereabouts. Pen had sent out letters across the shifter network, but so far everything had come back negative. She had written a brief note, but hadn’t the heart to send it yet. Nothing else urgent needed to go to the various dead drops she maintained across London, so Penelope buried the finished and sealed pieces in her desk and was crawling into bed when a sound made her freeze. Silence reigned for a few moments, until once again there was a small “clink” from her window, like a bit of gravel had hit it.

Sidling over to the window and just barely parting the curtains revealed a coatless Colin Bridgerton as he reared back to throw another pebble at her window. Penelope threw open the curtains, frantically shaking her head at him—the scandal if Portia heard anything and came to investigate would be staggering. The glare from the fire and candles behind her made it difficult for Penelope to see out the window, and if she cupped her hands around her eyes, she couldn’t communicate via gesture, so she carefully raised the sash, letting cool evening air wash over her and into her room as she stuck her head out and looked entirely disbelievingly at Colin.

He waved downwards, then pointed toward the little side door of the house. The request for her to come to the door was clear as day, but so was her emphatic head shake. She would never get past Portia’s room unnoticed, and even if by some miracle she did, the servants weren’t abed yet—she would be caught.

Colin’s clasped hands and repeated gesture towards the door clearly said “please,” but Penelope’s answer was still no—this time accompanied by emphatic pointing toward Bridgerton House. Colin’s mute shake of his head was somehow even more emphatic than Penelope’s. She briefly considered tossing a crumpled ball of paper at his head to drive the point home, but any with writing had already been burned and she wasn’t prepared to waste a clean sheet.

In the street beneath her window, Colin’s face was reddening. He threw his arms up—now what? Penelope’s answering—and equally exaggerated—shrug was met with hair pulling and pacing for long moments. Finally, Colin turned on his heel, ran a few steps, and leaped for the branches of the tree next to the Featherington house.

“Colin, do not!” Penelope whisper-called. Whether he didn’t hear her or simply ignored her, he didn’t look at her until he was level with her bedroom window. For an absurd moment, Penelope had the urge to ask, “What man art thou that thus bescreen’d in night/ So stumblest on my counsel?” before collecting herself and remembering that Juliet had not risked real ruin on the basis of being entirely fictional. And, she thought, as her heart leaped into her mouth when Colin nearly missed his grip and slid a bit, Romeo did not risk cracking his head falling out of a tree!

“Pen, let me in,” he called in a low voice.

“Absolutely not! I would be ruined if anyone found out.”

“People are less likely to find out that I’m in your room if I’m actually in it than if they catch sight of me having an extended conversation with you from a tree!”

He had her there, so all Penelope could do was move out of the way as he crawled inside her room and drag the sash down and the curtains closed as quickly and quietly as possible.

“You had better have a good reason for climbing in here in the middle of the night and risking ruining me after the ball tonight,” she said. To his credit, Colin’s face was red again, but this time with clear chagrin rather than frustration or anger.

“Anthony said that if I snuck out to apologize to you, he would send me to Aubrey Hall until you were married and had given your new husband an heir and more spares than King George.” His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers, but his shoulders were high and his chin was down. At that moment he reminded Penelope of nothing so much as the charming twelve-year-old who had been called on the carpet for stealing a toy from another sibling and was genuinely feeling his actions. Not that she was willing to excuse his actions that easily, even if her owl was cooing forgivingly in her head and sending her images of Colin wrapped in her wings, all forgiven.

“Well, it’s good to know that it’s not only my wishes you’re comfortable disregarding,” she snapped. “Do remind me to tell Anthony he is not alone in that.”

“Well, it’s good to know that it’s not only my wishes you’re comfortable disregarding,” she snapped. “Do remind me to tell Anthony he is not alone in that.”

“I just wanted to apologize for embarrassing you.” While he normally held himself with the unconscious confidence that all eight Bridgertons shared, tonight Colin was slouching and his apology was directed at his feet. “I allowed my dislike of that dishonorable reprobate to cloud—”

“Whatever has Lord Mowbray done to you that you risk giving him cause to call you out?” she interrupted. “Despite your skills, I do not imagine one truly ‘wins’ a duel with a soldier who has survived multiple battles.”

“This isn’t about him, Pen, this is about my behavior where you are concerned.”

“How can you possibly say it’s not about him? You certainly didn’t cut in tonight because you wanted to dance with me. I may not be a desirable prospect for marriage, but I’m nobody’s fool. Lady Bridgerton prompted you and Anthony and Benedict to dance with me early in my first season so I wouldn’t feel left out, and that shamed a few of the nicer mamas into telling their sons to do the same. And even when cruel young men would ask me to dance on a bet or a dare or for dishonorable reasons, you never ever bothered to try to cut in.” The desk chair creaked under Penelope’s hands, and she realized that her knuckles had gone white. Releasing the wood, she advanced on her friend—both her owl and the part of Penelope’s mind that wasn’t seeing red were shocked at the depth and vigor of the anger in her chest.

“You don’t want to marry me? Fine, I don’t want to marry you either. But you have said over and over that we are friends, Colin, and friends don’t do what you did tonight. Friends do not use other friends to embarrass powerful, politically well-connected men for seemingly no reason at all!”

“You don’t understand!” The words exploded from Colin’s chest with an intensity and sincerity that Penelope tended to attribute to Anthony when he was declaiming about honor and duty, or Benedict when he was passionately analyzing a work of art. Nevertheless, Penelope didn’t step back, and Colin’s emphatic step forward put them more or less nose-to-nose as Colin continued to speak.

“I cannot stand the sight of you with him, Pen. He has no honor, no sense of fair play, and no amount of breeding can force a man to be a gentleman if he doesn’t want to be.”

“Yet all the ungentlemanly behavior I witnessed tonight—was embarrassed by tonight—was yours. Why does it bother you so much when I dance with him?”

“You deserve better.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“He’s only here for the season, and for political reasons at that. He shouldn’t be taking you away from the marriage mart. My God Pen, he could scare off other prospects, could cost you offers if they think he is courting you!” The instant Colin’s fist connected with the wall and released a resounding thud, his eyes widened—he knew he had made a potentially fatal error. 

Before either could move, Portia’s voice came down the hall. “Penelope what on earth?”

Colin started to move toward the window, but the footsteps Penelope could hear told her that he wouldn’t make it out in time. Catching his shirtsleeve, Penelope gestured frantically toward her bed. Colin didn’t move, raising an eyebrow incredulously. A thump on the door and the creak of the doorknob had him diving beneath the bed just as Portia opened the door and stormed into the room.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in here young lady, but if you disturb your sisters’ and my beauty sleep anymore—”

“My apologies, Mama,” interrupted Penelope, frantic but thinking quickly. “Lord Mowbray expressed an appreciation of Shakespeare when we danced tonight and I was memorizing a favorite passage of mine so we can discuss it the next time he calls.”

Portia sniffed, but it was clear that some of her ire had died. “It is a pity your looks are so poor that you must resort to the tricks of a bluestocking to catch a man, but I suppose I cannot be upset that you have accepted that you must allow him to court you and accept his proposal. I was expecting you to be stubborn for days.”

“I did not say I accepted it, Mama. I simply enjoy discussing literature.” Penelope knew the words were a mistake before she even opened her mouth, but that didn’t stop her. The book Portia snatched from Penelope’s desk whistled as it swung through the air to hit Penelope’s quickly-turned shoulder with a loud smack.

“Watch your impertinent tongue, and keep your voice down. Some of us have our beauty sleep to attend to. When Lord Mowbray arrives to court you, you will do whatever it takes to secure a proposal.” Turning to leave, Portia dropped the book on the floor, and began to pull the door closed. Suddenly she stopped and turned back to her daughter, sneering. “You already proved to him that you will choose him over Colin Bridgerton, so there should be little doubt in Lord Mowbray’s mind about where your affections lie.” She pulled the door shut with a sharp snap.

Penelope sagged to the floor, breathing hard, with one hand unconsciously cupping her shoulder. It didn’t hurt badly, but her heart was pounding a mile a minute at how close a call that had been and staying upright seemed beyond her capacity. The weight of conflicting expectations—her mother’s, Lord Mowbray’s, the shifter community’s, and the ton’s—drove her to her knees and filled her lungs with sand. She couldn’t save the shifter community from Lord Mowbray; she couldn’t even save herself from a marriage proposal she was at war with herself over. She was drowning—so why not just swim down?

“Pen?”

The concern and care in that voice dragged Penelope’s chin up. Barely two feet from her face was Colin’s. He was crouched on the floor of her bedroom, as much at her level as his six-foot frame could be. The muscles in his arms were flexing, like he wanted to reach for her, but either he somehow sensed that she would panic at such an intrusion or he had decided to maintain that particular social propriety.

Once he had caught her eyes, Colin took a slow, deep breath, exaggerating the movement of his shoulders as he did. After a moment, he released the breath, still holding Penelope’s eyes. As her breathing began to follow his, the knot that had formed in Colin’s stomach began to ease. The glazed, faraway look faded from Penelope’s face, and the quiet, calculating look Colin recognized from many balls replaced it. His Pen was coming back to him. Slowly, Colin reached out, meaning to take her free hand.

Penelope blinked and used her free hand to collect the book her Mama had so carelessly dropped. If she had allowed him to take her hand, she might have collapsed entirely, and she couldn’t afford that. The book had fallen spine up, pages curling beneath the weight of spine and covers. The long moments she spent uncurling and smoothing the ruffled leaves gave her the time to collect herself enough to quietly say, “You should go.” She couldn’t meet his eyes as she said it; wouldn’t have been able to say it if she had.

Colin reared back as if she had struck him.

“You must be mad if you think I’m leaving you here after that.”

“What are you going to do, Colin? Kidnap me?”

“I will carry you down the hallway and hammer on your mother’s door. She cannot marry you off to Mowbray after that.”

Penelope dropped her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking with something that was coming out as laughter but felt more like sobs shredding what little was left of her hope.

“You cannot simply brazen your way through every situation you dislike on the strength of stubbornness and the Bridgerton name,” she said, long moments later. “Let me explain to you how your little plan would go. Mama would raise a hue and cry, the watch would arrive, you would be arrested for breaking into a house full of women—and I’m sure Anthony could save you, but it would ruin Eloise, Francesca, and Hyacinth’s chances of a good marriage. It would also cost Prudence and Philippa any chance of good marriages. I would simply be shipped off to the poor Featherington cousins in Ireland as punishment for leading you on so egregiously that you felt this was permissible.” Portia would probably lock her in a packing crate to make the crossing, but Penelope didn’t bother saying as much.  

“You reveal yourself tonight and you ruin not only me, Colin, but also five other women. So yes, you should go.”

Sliding forward across the polish hardwood on his knees, Colin’s face was suddenly inches from Penelope’s, his hands gently cupping her upper arms.

“Then let’s just go. Let’s run. We can get married in Gretna Green and—”

Penelope shoved him, sliding backwards.

“Don’t make offers you don’t mean,” she snapped.

“I meant every word, Pen. Whatever we have to do to get you safely out of here and away from Mowbray, I will do it.”

“You said you would never marry me—”

“That was before I knew about all this!”

“You cannot save everyone!” Penelope whisper-shouted.

“I’m not trying to save everyone, I’m trying to save you! You are my best friend, Pen. I cannot stand by and watch you endure your mother’s treatment and then be sold off to a man I do not trust to treat you well.”

Penelope stood, walked to her window, and opened it. Without turning back to Colin, she said, “Then I suppose you had best not look.”

“Why are you pushing me away? You accuse me of being a poor friend, but what are you doing right now?” Colin’s voice held the stubborn note it often got when he was arguing with his brothers, and from the direction, it sounded like he was still planted on the floor of Penelope’s bedroom.

“If you marry me tomorrow, you will regret it in a month, and I will not allow you to regret me for the rest of your life.” Penelope stared at the stars as they blurred before her eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling.

“And you think somehow that you won’t regret marrying him?”

“Have you even considered this from my perspective?” Penelope whirled on Colin, tired of his questions, his assertions that her happiness should automatically be the most important variable in the equation. “Not everyone is so fortunate in their families as the Bridgertons. You, the third son of a family, can prioritize your travels, your pleasure, your happiness without fearing for your finances and respectability. I do not have that luxury, Colin, and the cold, hard fact of the matter is that Lord Mowbray has the money, position, and title to keep my Mama and my sisters safely housed even if Philippa and Prudence never marry. You have never had to worry about security, and you obviously do not understand its importance.”

“You were on Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s side when we read the new Austen novel; you said she was brave to choose her happiness over security.”

“She is a fictional character, Colin! I think you may find a great many more Charlotte Lucases in the real world. And I consider myself lucky that the man who seems to be prepared to offer me a proposal is less odious than Mr. Collins.”

Colin was on his feet again, red-faced, with fists clenched by his sides.

“It sounds an awful lot like perhaps you want to marry him, despite the fact that he is responsible for ripping people away from their lives and their families for simply existing. Have you no care for that?”

The laugh that ripped from Penelope was poisoned by a lifetime of fury, unresolved grief, and a sudden ferocious desire to throw the words “I am a shifter” into Colin’s face like a snowball with a rock inside it. But because she still did not dare say those words out loud, she chose instead to ask, “And since when have shifters mattered to you? You have casually disparaged them in my hearing, nobody in the ton has the least sympathy for them, and in all the years we have known each other, I don’t believe you have ever once had an opinion of your own about them. I don’t for a moment believe you care about shifters.”

“That’s because you weren’t with us in Spain!” Colin whirled away from Penelope, threw an arm against the wall and leaned into it, breathing heavily.

Sensing that he was about to elaborate, Penelope didn’t move, barely breathed—waiting.

“This isn’t my story to tell, strictly speaking,” he said, slowly. “But I don’t believe you’ll tell anyone, and this is important.”

Penelope already knew a little of what had happened in Salamanca; she had retrieved Atherton Swift’s letter from a dead drop she no longer used, and then immediately written to his family—about half his siblings and his father were also shifters. They had quickly and quietly packed themselves off to their German relatives before Mowbray arrived in London, and Penelope had used the time to nudge the few shifters who either themselves sat in the lords or had family members who did to begin laying the groundwork to oppose any expansion of the laws making existing as a shifter illegal.

What she had not known was that it had been Colin who saved Atherton’s life and made sure that the crucial letter to Lady Whistledown had made it to the dead drop. She had not known until now that, despite Colin’s carelessness with his words and the prevailing derogatory attitudes about shifters that he had seemingly unconsciously internalized, when it came right down to brass tacks, he would defend a shifter. He genuinely cared enough to stand between a man who was little more than an acquaintance and several British officers when the man was revealed as a shifter.

The words “I am a shifter” rose once again in her throat.

“If you tell him now, he will reveal you.” Penelope’s owl had been quiet throughout the fight, but as Penelope took a breath to tell him her secret, the owl spoke. “It will come from a place of care, but he will reveal you. We will tell him about us someday, but we cannot tell him now.”

“Please?”

“He will challenge the hunter, and the hunter is no fool. How long do you think it will take him to be suspicious that there might be another reason that Colin is so protective if the hostility suddenly escalates? I ask you, please trust me and wait.”

“As much sympathy as I have for the shifters Lord Mowbray has revealed,” said Pen, slowly, her heart breaking with every word. “It is not in my power to change the law. And as far as the ton and Mama are concerned, this match is advantageous for me by every possible measure. I would be a fool to turn it down.”

“This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“If Mama or Anthony catches you, you can’t do anything to stop it. You really should go, Colin.” Penelope sat on her bed, thoroughly exhausted and hoping that he would listen. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt that she would regret giving him the false hope of “you can’t fix it if you get caught,” but she was out of ideas and energy.

Suddenly her hands were engulfed in Colin’s warm ones, and he was kneeling in front of her.

“I’m going to go, but Pen, I promise you that I will not let this stand. We will find another way to get you out of this house that does not entail marrying that man. Somehow, we’ll find a way.”

He did not let go of her hands until Penelope lifted her chin to meet his eyes. With one last smile, Colin was disappearing out her window. And try as she might, Penelope could not extinguish the tiny flame of hope that blossomed deep in her heart. Even when her head knew that she would almost certainly have to marry Mowbray.

Chapter Text

1813 – England

The next two weeks were a whirlwind of escalating romantic gestures from Mowbray. The morning after her fight with Colin, Penelope was treated to a truly exquisite bouquet, a beautifully bound copy of Henry V (complete with an inscription that said, “Fair Penelope, and most fair, will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms such as will enter at a lady’s ear and plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?”), and a box of chocolates. Her gifts were accompanied by bouquets for Portia, Philippa, and Prudence.

Portia spent all of breakfast and most of the morning crowing over how much he must have spent on the bouquets and how well they would all live once Mowbray and Penelope wed. Then Portia dragged her youngest off to the modiste. Had anyone but Genevieve seen Portia’s willingness to outfit Penelope specifically to catch a man, all of Penelope’s hemlines and necklines would have been hideously inappropriate and in the gaudiest shades of yellow known to man. Instead, Genevieve took the opportunity to convince Portia that dresses closer to the Mowbray colors and that flattered more subtly would be most effective, and Penelope shortly had a bevy of new gowns made up in various shades of crimson and maroon with bronze accents.

One of these she wore to the theatre with Mowbray and her mother a few nights later, where they took in a production of Othello. After, as they mingled with the rest of the ton, Mowbray assured Penelope that the choice would be hers: she could remain in either the Mowbray estates in Scotland or the Mowbray townhouse in London when he was in the field or she could, if she wished, accompany him as some officers’ wives did. He opined that Shakespeare had overemphasized the possible challenges, and rather thought he would prefer to have his wife with him in the field. Penelope had admitted to a certain curiosity about the life of an officer on campaign, and cautiously suggested that she might be open to trying life in the field—with the caveat that he promise not to entrust her with any family heirlooms in the process.

The entire Bridgerton family also attended the theatre that night; Penelope noted all of them in their box. Colin kept sneaking glances at the royal box, which the queen had graciously permitted Mowbray to use. Penelope was worried he would confront Mowbray again after the show, but while he did not quite manage a neutral expression as he contemplated them, he refrained from interfering.

A day later, Portia was doing a particularly poor job of hiding the fact that she was listening in on Mowbray’s description of his home and lands as he and Penelope sat at a small table outside a fancy sweet shop in London sharing a pot of tea and a tiered selection of cakes, sweets, and delicacies. Despite the soldierly nature of his descriptions—with details about points of ingress and egress and general defensibility that belonged more in a formal report than an attempt to woo a young lady—Penelope caught a general idea of a lonely, but remarkably romantic estate in the Scottish Highlands that she very much wanted to see in person.

The next time they met was in the Featherington parlor, where Mowbray carefully held a neutral expression as Prudence shrilled and moaned her way through a song, accompanied by Philippa on the pianoforte. During a particularly long and shrill note, he leaned over and whispered, “We should replace the signal trumpets with your sister; she would be easier to hear in battle,” into Penelope’s ear. Her hastily covered laugh began to spark a dirty look from Portia, but a wink from Mowbray stopped it in its tracks. Penelope wasn’t even scolded after Mowbray had departed.

Their next three encounters were all balls, hosted by Lady Danbury, the queen, and Lady Bridgerton. It was made painfully clear on those occasions that Mowbray meant to propose; he danced no less than three or four dances with Penelope each time, and when they were not on the floor, they were together. Sometimes they chatted as a couple, other times Mowbray introduced her to his fellow officers and acquaintances among the ton who did not share his military career. Most of these men were older than her peers among the debutantes, yet they showed her no disrespect, listening when she spoke and going out of their way to include her in their discussions once they realized she could not only craft intelligible sentences, but could grasp more complex topics than fashion and gossip.

Once they realized she had a sense of humor, they wasted no time regaling her with stories that made Mowbray blush and reach for his lemonade multiple times. She was not afraid to laugh and involve herself in the jokes—not when they were so clearly and willingly making space for her in their camaraderie.

The feeling of being a welcome part of a group was something that Penelope had known existed, but hadn’t realized that she was so desperate for until it happened to her. If Cressida hadn’t made it her mission to bully Penelope and if Penelope had not been forced out into society too soon, this could have been her experience on the marriage mart from the beginning. The feeling of belonging—and, she dared to dream, popularity—was pinched a little by the noted loss of Bridgerton company.

Eloise and Colin had not so much as tried to see Penelope during the balls; even the one their mother hosted was limited to a polite greeting on arrival, and then Penelope and Mowbray were left to their own devices. Penelope wasn’t sure if Violet had given her children a lecture about letting Penelope get to know the man who was clearly preparing to propose to her, or if the dislike Colin held for Mowbray extended to the rest of the family. Benedict had been polite but stiff when forced to thank Mowbray for rescuing Penelope and Eloise—perhaps Colin had told his family about Salamanca. In any case, Penelope found herself fiercely missing her friends. She wanted to share the soldier’s stories with them, see their reactions, and talk about what married life might look like. And every time she took Lord Mowbray’s hand and let him lead her onto the floor for the quadrille, a sharp spike of guilt pierced her heart. The quadrille was still Colin’s dance in her mind and in her heart, but the rules of propriety—and the situation Colin had put himself in with his abysmal manners—meant that there was nothing Penelope could do but smile and accept Mowbray’s hand.

She nearly begged him to excuse her when he asked for her hand for the final waltz of the evening—one traditionally reserved for couples who were either newlyweds, engaged couples, or couples who were about to be engaged. To dance that dance with him at Bridgerton House, with Colin’s eyes tracking her every movement, watching as Mowbray held her close...something about it that she couldn’t articulate seemed unspeakably cruel. And yet she still took his hand, still allowed him to lead her onto the floor. She didn’t protest when he pulled her closer than ever before, or when, after their final bow and curtsy, as the final notes from the orchestra were fading away but before the spell was broken, Mowbray forgot himself, reverently cupped her cheek, and leaned down as if to kiss her.

The cold splash of lemonade across her chest and Cressida Cowper’s harsh, “Oh my heavens, Penelope, I didn’t see you there,” elicited an emotion that was uncomfortably close to gratitude because they forced Mowbray to take a step back, clearly biting back a word that would have better suited a battlefield than a ballroom.

“Surely you could see me, Miss Cowper? And from that, extrapolate that there may have been someone in front of me?” Mowbray’s thunderous tone, designed to start men into action in battle, drained all the color from Cressida’s face. “Or is it common for young ladies to be silly enough to imagine that men simply stand in the midst of dance floors with no partners?”

“Well...I...” the blonde girl floundered for words, having never been so abruptly checked in public. If lemonade hadn’t been slowly soaking into Penelope’s corset and chemise and making her feel uncomfortably sticky and clammy, she would have been enjoying this. Penelope would have enjoyed reliving Cressida’s humiliation with Eloise and Colin—were she not with Mowbray. Something hollow opened in her chest, and she nearly gasped with its intensity.

“You are lucky you are not a soldier under my command, Miss Cowper. Most of them try such tactics precisely once. Remove yourself from my sight.” Mowbray’s gaze hardened as the girl hesitated. “Now!” he barked.

Cressida turned and ran.

As Mowbray escorted Penelope toward the doors to walk her across Grosvenor Square to her home to change, something made her look back. Colin stood on the grand stairwell at the far end of the hall, right foot on a lower step than the left, fists clenched, with furious eyes in a relatively neutral face. Benedict’s hand was on his shoulder, and he was speaking into Colin’s ear. Colin’s focus, though, was on Penelope.

“He misses you as much as you miss him.” Penelope’s owl hadn’t spoken to her since the night of the fight with Colin, and this sudden comment startled her so badly that she tripped over the threshold and would have fallen flat had Mowbray not been there to catch her. She couldn’t see Colin’s face as Mowbray swept her up in his arms and proceeded to carry her down the steps and across the square, but she almost hoped he would climb the tree to her room so she could explain herself.

He did not appear that night.

* * *

The next morning dawned cool and overcast, which did not bode well for the traditional promenade that all the families of the ton would be engaging in. This promenade was rather a cross between a promenade and a massive picnic, with families having tents with pillows and blankets set up, and the younger members of the ton promenading but also playing games—hoop games and tag for the children, and the debutantes and young gentlemen engaging in Blind Man’s Bluff and Simon Says. The entire day was meant to be relaxed and playful, and Penelope had always enjoyed spending this day with the Bridgertons as a child and during her first two seasons. Today, however, she would don a delicate crimson underdress with a sheer maroon overdress, bronze belt, shoulder pins, and full jewelry set. The bracelet she would wear was a gift from Lord Mowbray, with the Mowbray crest on the outside, and “For the liveliness of your mind, I did” stamped on the inside.

Portia herself supervised Penelope as she was dressed, outfitted with her jewelry, and had her hair styled. Once she declared her daughter ready and dismissed the maid, Penelope rose and began to leave the room, but Portia stopped her. Turning Penelope to face her, Portia put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and examined her face for a long moment.

“You look well, Penelope,” she finally said, real approval and something like warmth in her voice.

Penelope’s heart seized. Portia had never complimented her on her looks before, and while it was likely only because she thought Penelope was finally going to succeed on the marriage mart, it undeniably offered a tiny patch to the space that craved her mother’s affection. Penelope had spent years ignoring that part of her heart, convinced that she would have to simply learn to live with Portia’s disappointment.

The thought that she was only gaining that approval now that she was preparing to obey Portia and marry a man who believed that shifters deserved to be illegal, used only as tools for the crown and executed if they did not cooperate, was simply too painful to contemplate. It would mean that the only way her mother saw her as valuable was when she was less than what she was. Pushing that thought from her mind and ignoring the sudden roiling in her belly, Penelope offered a small smile and a whispered, “Thank you, Mama,” before practically running from the room. The tears did not quite fall, but it took most of the carriage ride for Penelope to master her emotions enough to put on a smile when Mowbray stepped up to the carriage door and opened it at the edge of the long, green space that was a favorite for promenades.

At the end nearest the streets suitable for coach travel, servants and staff had been busy at work since dawn pitching family tents, trucking blankets, pillows, and lawn furniture out, alongside equipment for pall mall, lawn darts, and even bowls. Chafing dishes and tiered stands of food—all covered in netting to discourage insects—were everywhere, and small chests held ice and carafes of lemonade and cordial. A few of the tents also had musical instruments, although Penelope winced a bit to see that the Smythe-Smith tent held four violins. The ton were only beginning to arrive, so at the moment the park was quiet and picturesque, a calm, green haven waiting for people to fill it with music and laughter.  

The massive blue Bridgerton tent took up the central space of honor, as it so often did. The tassels in pastel shades of lilac, mint, and powder blue waved in the gentle breeze. There was seating enough for the family and any number of friends or suitors, and the Bridgerton tent was often a buzzing hub. Even as a shy child, Penelope had found that tent exciting but comfortable under the stewardship of Violet and Anthony.

After her marriage, Daphne could well have presided over her own tent as the Duchess of Hastings, but she had instead chosen to bring Simon into the Bridgerton tent. Kate’s family was also welcomed with open arms into the Bridgerton fold, and the tent had actually been expanded for this year to ensure that the entire clan was welcome.

The next largest tent on the field this year was new, and rather than being the typical airy and whimsically decorated tent that most of the ton employed, it was plain canvas that had been dyed and left largely undecorated. It was also clearly a functional tent, possibly something that officers in the field would use. The Mowbray crest had been expertly painted on the roof, however, which would have told Penelope whose tent it was even if the style and material had not.

Expecting to see the Featherington’s pokey tent in an undesirable corner as it had been for the last few years, Penelope was briefly startled when she couldn’t see it. Generally, the gaudy orange, yellow, and green hues made it impossible to overlook.

“It’s just on the far side of mine.” Mowbray’s voice pulled Penelope back to her present. He had handed down Portia, Prudence, and Philippa, and a gloved hand was extended for her. “It was entirely too far away from mine, so I had it moved.”

“How thoughtful of you, My Lord,” purred Portia, basking in the unexpected bump in the status of their tent placement. Once Penelope’s feet were on the ground, Mowbray wrapped her arm around his, and Portia took his free arm. With Prudence and Philippa following behind, the group strode into the park.

Once they were ensconced—Portia, Phillippa, and Prudence in the Featherington tent, which was close enough to the Mowbray one for Portia to chaperone Penelope and Mowbray—Mowbray turned to Penelope again.

“Regrettably, I must mix business with pleasure today, Miss Featherington. Much as I wish to prioritize you, I shall be forced to spend some time in frankly dull discussion with some of the other gentlemen about changing the jurisdiction of our shifter laws. If you wish to promenade while I do so, you are more than welcome to. I shall always find you when I am free. And if you wish a break from people, well…” He walked to one corner of his tent and picked up a small chest. Dropping to one knee before the chintz pouf Penelope had settled herself on, he opened the chest to reveal two dozen palm-sized books. The range was impressive; some texts on war and strategy, a selection of Shakespeare, a couple of Greek philosophers, and a few novels, including two by Miss Austen. They had clearly been bound as a set for this chest; the brass accents on covers, spines, and chest corners matched, and the bindings were of high quality.

“This was a gift from Colonel Cole when I was promoted to Provost Marshal. I have carried it on many a campaign, and these books never fail to lift my spirits. You may have your pick of them to read.” Something vulnerable crossed his face for a moment. “I have never let anyone else touch this set; too many soldiers would tear pages for cartridge wraps. But I thought you might like a reprieve from all the people today.”

Almost before she was explicitly given permission, Penelope’s fingers were dancing over the bindings, feeling the smooth kidskin of the spines, with clear spots of wear on favorite reads. “These are lovely, I’ll be careful with them,” she said.

Mowbray captured her wandering hand in his, raising it softly to his lips. “I never doubted it,” he murmured.

He was still holding her hand when a white-haired man in a stuffy-looking but impeccably tailored coat that was nearly a decade out of fashion stopped before the tent and coughed impatiently, accompanying the sound with a few thumps of his walking stick against one of the wooden supports of tent.

Not so much as a sigh or a sudden tensing of Mowbray’s shoulders said he’d been startled, but Penelope was close enough to see his eyes widen ever-so-slightly, and then roll as he realized who had interrupted them. The quick smile he flashed was just for her, before something artificially pleasant slid over his features. Mowbray rose and ducked out of the tent, greeting the man and walking with him.

A quick glance at the Featherington tent revealed that Portia was deep in conversation with a few ladies, and Prudence and Philippa had slipped away to promenade with their friends. Penelope stole her moment, slipping out the side of the tent least likely to be in Portia’s peripheral vision and made a beeline for the Bridgerton tent.

The closer she got to the big blue tent, the more insecure Penelope felt. She hadn’t spoken to Colin or Eloise in weeks—would she still be welcome there? Her steps slowed and finally stopped just barely behind a copse of trees near the Bridgerton tent.

Gregory, Hyacinth, Francesca, Eloise, Simon, and Anthony were tossing and catching beribboned hoops on the grass to one side of the tent, while Daphne and Kate sat and called encouragement to the players. Benedict was lounging over a settee, sketchbook in hand, oblivious to the world. Colin was nowhere in sight, much to Penelope’s quiet, half-ignored disappointment.

Recovering from a bout of laughter, Violet’s eyes slid away from her family and somehow lighted on the redheaded girl halfheartedly hiding behind the trees. “Penelope, dear,” Violet called. “How lovely to see you, come say hello.” The matriarch patted the blanket next to her, and something warm welled up in Penelope’s chest as she stepped beneath the tent and settled next to Violet, who gave her a hug around the shoulders before handing her a cloth napkin filled with biscuits.

“It’s been entirely too long, my dear. Is your family well? Are you?” The warmly asked questions did little to hide the slight intensity of Violet’s last question. Penelope knew she was considered one of the family, had been since she and Eloise were children, and Violet did not seem any more pleased at Mowbray’s courtship of her than Colin had. The worry in Violet’s eyes communicated that much clearly.

“We are all quite well, thank you, Lady Bridgerton,” said Penelope, at last, deciding that a polite answer was safer than giving a voice to the doubts she was still trying to quash.

“Simply well? There are rumors that you may be receiving a proposal this season; most young ladies are ecstatic in such a position. Could it be that the rumor mill is wrong?” Violet may have been speaking directly to Penelope, and quietly too, but Kate and Daphne’s ears were inarguably pricked to the conversation, even as they continued to watch the hoop game.

“I...am truly not sure. Lord Mowbray has been paying attention to me this season, certainly, but...”

“My dear.” Cupping Penelope’s cheek in a gentle hand, Violet lifted the girl’s face so she could search her eyes. “If you are happy and wish to marry him, then you should not think yourself unworthy of the match. I know your Lord Mowbray is a somewhat complicated figure among the ton, but to this mother’s eye, it’s clear he cares a great deal for you. Do you want him to propose?”

“Mama is practically desperate for him to propose,” said Penelope.

“I’m quite sure she is. But what do you want, Penelope?” At the younger woman’s silence, Violet smiled. “It will be our secret; I will keep your confidence.”

“He has been kind, and it has been so nice to be wanted.” Penelope’s treacherous tongue slipped its leash, and she couldn’t get it back under control. “He hears me when I speak, and we share an interest in books. I would very much like to see his estates, and if we were to marry, the choice to stay here or join him in the field would be mine. His friends made space for me. I have enjoyed getting to know him. But I don’t...I don’t know if I can marry him. I don’t think Mama would let me say no.” Penelope’s voice had lowered but sped up, and she found herself gasping out her final two questions. “What if I end up regretting my choice? And what if there is something wrong with me that he learns about when it’s too late and hates me for?”

“Penelope Featherington, there is nothing, nothing whatsoever, that anyone could hate about you,” Violet said fiercely. “You are an intelligent, beautiful woman with a good heart, and any gentleman would be lucky to have you in his life.”

“Mama!” A flushed, grinning Hyacinth interrupted Penelope and Violet’s conversation. She collapsed onto the blanket before Violet in that bonelessly graceful way some children have and had barely stopped moving before she began talking.

“Gregory and I say that we can make better paper boats than David and Ella and Mary and Marcus, have we any paper so we can see who makes the best boat and whose boat float the longest?”

“There is paper there,” said Violet, gesturing to one of the smaller baskets dotted around. “But you need to take one of your older brothers if you’re going to be around the pond. I know you can swim,” a raised hand halted Hyacinth’s protests before they began. “But I have no idea if the other children can, so you need someone there who can swim and is big enough to rescue your friends if they fall in.”

“Not me,” called Benedict, still immersed in drawing.

“I am knackered after that game,” said Anthony, dropping to the blankets beside Kate.

“Colin, then,” announced Violet as the unlucky third-eldest son returned.

“Colin what?” he asked.

Penelope had to give him credit; he had barely stumbled or flinched when he caught sight of her, focusing instead on his mother. She rather thought that if she had been speaking when she’d caught sight of him, she’d have mixed up her words so badly that she’d have had to begin her sentence again.

“You’ll go with Hyacinth and Gregory and their friends to the pond to make boats and make sure nobody falls in,” said Violet. “And Penelope will join you because there should be someone there with a level head. Otherwise, I fear I will turn my head to find you launching children into the pond.”

Hyacinth grinned, and scampered toward the pond, a sheaf of papers in her hands. Gregory called “Hyacinth wait!” before unceremoniously grabbing Colin and Penelope’s hands—he was just getting his growth spurt, so he managed to pull Penelope up through sheer strength and momentum—and pulling them after him as he chased his sister toward the pond.

Despite its name and distinctly rounded shape, the pond was actually a diversion of a large creek. Some enterprising lord a few generations back had paid to dig a pond large enough to walk around and watch ducks—and hide bodies in, the children whispered, since it was more than deep enough for anyone who didn’t know how to swim to drown in, should they be unlucky enough to fall in without help on hand. The real reason the pond had been dug so deeply was a clerical miscommunication; the man paid to manage the project had mixed up the width and depth measurements. The lord had not come to view the project until after the water had been diverted and it was entirely too late to fix. The creek that had been diverted was deep and swift, so unlike many man-made ponds, this one had enough water moving through it to keep it from becoming scummy, smelly, and ultimately unpleasant to be too close to. When she was shifted, Penelope liked to perch in the trees around the pond at night and watch what animals—and other shifters—came by.

In the light of day as a human, however, the scene was deeply untranquil, leaning instead toward chaos and fun. Children yelled and laughed and chattered as they folded paper boats and found twigs to serve as masts, with leaves, ferns, and flowers for decoration.

“You’re going to sink your boat with all that,” Hyacinth said to one of her friends, who was using her boat as an excuse to practice her flower arranging. The boat looked beautiful, but Penelope couldn’t fault Hyacinth’s assessment. The boat was crumpling under the weight of the greenery and blossoms on dry land.

The sun on her uncovered hair was becoming oppressive, so Penelope found a shady spot beneath a nearby tree and settled herself down to keep an eye on the gaggle of young shipwrights. A moment later, Colin settled into a tailor’s seat near her. He was at an entirely respectable distance, and they were in full view of the rest of the ton, be they promenading along the lane in the center of the park on in the tents on the green. They were, however, well out of earshot, and even if any nosey parties were to come closer to try to listen in, the noise the children were making would cover a soft conversation. Colin had chosen an excellent time and place for a conversation as private as they could possibly hope for, Penelope had to admit.

“I haven’t forgotten our earlier conversation,” he began, looking a little hesitant and more than a little shamefaced. “I just haven’t deduced how to extricate you from the situation.”

“I do not expect you to rescue me,” said Penelope. “And perhaps Mama is right, and an advantageous marriage is for the best.”

“I do not trust that woman to have your best interests at heart.” Colin’s response was swift and vicious. “Not after what I witnessed, Pen. I don’t think she would hesitate to throw you to the wolves.”

“We are going in circles,” she snapped back. “Lord Mowbray has made his intentions clear; there are no other forthcoming proposals. This is how it must be, Colin. Don’t make it more difficult.”

“Why are you resigned to this?”

“Because maybe I can soften his stance on shifters!”

In her head, Penelope’s owl mantled and hissed, “Be careful what you say!”

Penelope’s hand had clapped over her traitorous mouth as soon as the damning words had issued forth, but Colin’s wide eyes told her that some threshold had been crossed; some critical crack had appeared in the dam in her resolve not to tell him what she truly was.

“You cannot put that burden on yourself. You cannot take on that risk, Pen. I know all you’ve seen of Mowbray is his gentlemanly side, but I promise you there is—”

“I was at Miss Euphemia’s presentation; don’t you dare say I don’t know what I’m getting into. You yourself told me about Atherton’s experiences with him. I might be resigned, but I am nobody’s fool, Colin. I cannot stop this proposal, cannot stop the wedding it heralds. So, I must make the best of the situation, and perhaps he might be persuaded by his wife not to expand the laws that make shifters illegal within the bounds of England.”

“Be silent! You say too much!” screeched her owl.

Colin had heard her—truly heard her this time. She could see it in the puzzle pieces shifting and fitting behind his eyes.

“Penelope,” he said, far too softly. “Are you protecting one of your sisters? Did your Mama throw you at Mowbray because one of them—”

“The hatchlings!” Her owl’s screech was so loud and terrified that Penelope was on her feet and moving before she had fully registered what the problem was.

Standing firmly between the children at the edge of the pond and thicket of trees with dense bush beneath them, she could see what had her owl panicking. Crouched low to the ground, slinking out from beneath the bushes, was an enormous grey wolf. It was too thin, with ribs showing through patchy, mangy fur. The wolf’s ears were pinned against its skull, and it was moving jerkily, erratically, tossing its head as it growled low. The almost violent motions of its head sent white foam from its jaws spraying in an arc.

"Is that—”

“Yes,” confirmed her owl, a mourning keen in its voice. “That’s Archibald Twombley.”

And he had somehow contracted rabies.

There was a ring of silence expanding over the park. The children behind Penelope had seen what she had seen and frozen—whether out of fear or good sense Penelope neither knew nor cared, so long as they didn’t startle Twombley into charging one of them. Colin was on his feet, still and silent, but the fear in his eyes was visible to Penelope from where she stood. He didn’t dare move either, in case he provoked the wolf and someone got bitten. Two of his siblings and his best friend were in the direct path of the wolf, and he was unarmed. The sudden silence from the pond swiftly drew attention from Mamas who knew that quiet children meant mischief, and as they gasped quietly or reached for the arms of husbands, sons, and brothers, the silence expanded further—a delicate spell of silence and stillness that could break at any moment.

Penelope’s heart pounded in her ears, and every slow, shallow breath she drew seemed loud enough to break the tension and cause pandemonium. The best-case scenario—which could be nothing but tragic in the current circumstances—would have been for one of the men to shoot Twombley; putting him out of his misery and protecting everyone else in the park. Unfortunately, none of the men, not even Mowbray and his fellow officers, were armed today. Firearms were unwieldly and there was no shooting permitted in the park, so no man had so much as a dueling pistol to hand. One or two of the gentlemen may have had sword blades hidden in their canes, but nobody wanted to get close enough to a rabid wolf for a sword cane to be the answer.

Likely the only thing making Twombley hesitate now was that the children were right at the edge of the pond; animals that had gone rabid seemed to detest water. Penelope was not as easy a target as the literal children ten feet behind her, but she was further from the water and closer to Twombley than Colin was.

Slowly, so painfully slowly, Penelope lifted her hands, palms toward Twombley. “Please,” she breathed. “Please run. You have to go.”

Though he couldn’t possibly have heard her, Twombley’s body relaxed for a long moment, and for a breath, a heartbeat, Penelope thought he might retreat.

The instant she saw his muscles bunch, the high-pitched bellow of another animal split the air, breaking the spell. Twombley launched himself directly at Penelope. She wasn’t sure whether she screamed or not, too distracted by the sound of delicate hoofbeats. The next thing she knew something massive, firm, and warm had bowled into her, sending her flying tail over teakettle to one side. She wasn’t sure if the wet crunch she heard on impact came from her, but she wasn’t immediately in too much pain to move, and she was up on her knees watching without conscious thought or effort.

An elk was circling the wolf, which clearly had at least two broken ribs from the initial impact that had prevented it from attacking Penelope. Colin had clearly moved as soon as the elk had; he had one hand locked on the back of one little girl’s dress—carrying her like luggage—and a little boy who couldn’t have been more than seven in his other arm, with the rest of the children running before him, back toward the relative safety of the tents and their parents. Gregory and Hyacinth both had friends by their hands and were pulling them along.

Trusting utterly that Colin had the children and she didn’t need to worry about them, Penelope put her attention back on Twombley and the elk—Lord Langhan’s youngest son, James. As best she could see, there wasn’t a mark on James, but if this confrontation lasted any length of time, the young man wouldn’t remain lucky.

And she would have to explain to Lady Twombley what had happened to her brother, Penelope realized, heart constricting. The Twombleys were—perhaps thankfully, although it was a cold gratitude—not here today, maintaining the fiction of Twombly’s illness. She owed it to the family who had already lost a member but just didn’t yet know it to witness this and tell them what had happened.

It was mercifully fast, in the end.

James hopped back from a couple of snaps of Twombley’s jaws, then pivoted neatly on his hind legs to bring his forelegs down with devastating precision on the wolf’s forehead. The crack was audible across the park, and in its wake came gasps and sobs.

Gasps and sobs turned to screams and the sounds of vomiting as the wolf shifted back to Twombley in death, revealing a slight man who had obviously not eaten in far too long, and who had a ragged, infected bite mark on one leg—likely the cause of his illness. The mess that was his head and face did not bear description; Penelope very nearly vomited herself before she tore her eyes away from the sight. She fell forward almost instinctively, catching herself on her palms, her gloves doing almost nothing to prevent the rough gravel of the path from digging sharply into her skin.

"I didn’t know he would shift back,” she cried to her owl. “Why? Why did it have to be like this?”

The only answer she received was a mournful keening sound, and tears slid down her face.

James clearly hadn’t known Twombley would shift back on his death, and the shock made the younger man shift back as well. He took a few shaky steps back, then vomited, horror and something like shame written across his face.

The surprise and reaction to causing the death of a fellow shifter was what undid James.

Penelope heard the thwip-thwip-thwip of a flung knife too late to do anything, didn’t even see the direction from which it was flung until it materialized in James’ hamstring. The young man yelled in shock and dropped to the ground, barely remembering not to immediately yank the knife from his flesh. The handle suggested that the blade would have been too small to reach vital organs on either the wolf or elk, but it was more than sufficient to stop a human from running away. Especially if that human was already in shock and emotionally devastated from being forced to kill a member of his community. The pommel of the little knife was decorated with an embossed Mowbray crest.

The man to whom that crest belonged materialized as if by magic, looming above James, stone-faced.

“Shifter,” Mowbray said, calmly and quietly, underneath the babbling of the ton.

“Damn you to perdition,” spat James, face pale and green but doggedly defiant.

“I’m sure I’ll see you there, eventually.” Mowbray’s voice was still dispassionate and calm. “But now you have a choice to make. Come quietly, or I end you here and now.”

“End it then, you monster.”

“My lord!” Mowbray and James, equally startled, looked to Penelope, still on the ground a good ten feet from them.

"The hunter will not listen, this is dangerous,” hissed her owl.

“My lord,” she repeated, ignoring her owl. “Surely, surely given the circumstances, that this gentleman saved my life and the lives of the children, his being a shifter can be overlooked.” She waited a beat, looking for any change in Mowbray’s eyes. Any emotion other than that terrible flatness.

“Please,” she asked.

Mowbray blinked, and for a split second, she could see the man she had danced with again, the one who quoted books to her, made her laugh, made her feel wanted. He was there, she could reach him—

The shifter hunter’s eyes flattened again. She had lost him. Turning back to James, Mowbray pulled the knife from his leg. Slowly, and twisting it almost gently. James screamed—Penelope flinched bodily, but didn’t look away, would not make another shifter be alone in this moment.

Once the knife was out, Mowbray sat back on his heels for a moment. “You are more use to me alive than dead, shifter, and Miss Featherington is right—your actions in saving her and the children are commendable. So, today you get a second chance: I ask you again, will you come quietly?”

“I’m not letting you kill me by inches,” gasped James. “I will not permit you to use me to do this—” he gestured at Twombley’s body— “again.” Mowbray sighed, and looked at Penelope, eyes soft and sad.

“Look away, Penelope,” he said. Then he dragged the knife across James’s throat, cutting viciously, deeply, swiftly.

Blood hit her face—impossibly hot, like a branding iron marking her failure for the world to see. Then again. The third spurt landed a few feet from her; she had shoved herself back, away, as the light faded from James’s eyes.

Somewhere deep inside her head, Penelope could distantly hear her owl’s rage and grief—screeches mixed with exhortations to claw out the hunter’s eyes, slash his throat, snap his spine with their beak like he was a field mouse—but she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything. She was empty, had played her final card. She had failed, and two shifters lay dead.

And finally, finally, she understood in her heart and soul that she could not reach Mowbray. Would never reach him. The last shred of denial, of futile hope that by marrying him she could make life easier, safer, for herself and people like her, was torn from her clutching fingers and weeping heart. This marriage would kill her. Whether from slowly wasting away from grief as she watched her husband murder people like her without remorse or at his hand when he discovered her secret, to say “I do” would be to acquiesce to death and to be complicit in more shifter deaths.

“Pen, please, you’re scaring me.”

That voice. She knew that voice, but she didn’t recognize the fear in it.

“Just look at me, please Pen?”

She didn’t like the fear in that voice. It was too much, it hurt her heart. She was in so much pain already, but she could make that fear go away, and then she could just…melt. Melt into the comfort that voice promised. But first she had to come back into herself.

Skin clammy, body trembling, something itchy across her face, and stomach that might still very well expel its contents…she lifted her eyes, and locked onto Colin’s face.

He spent a moment searching her eyes and face, making sure that she was there with him, but once he assured himself that she was, he gave her a shaky, lopsided smile.

“There you are.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and ever so gently began dabbing it over the itchy spots on her face.

That was when she realized that he was knelt on the ground next to her, and she was under one of his arms, practically in his lap. That was the warmth across her shoulders that had made her feel safe enough to come back, to tug herself out of the void of despair she had slid into.

Colin did not hate her for failing. He was here, he was still with her—

With a snarl, Mowbray grabbed Colin’s shoulder and yanked him away from Penelope.

“Remove your hands from my fiancé, Bridgerton, or so help me I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. You take too many liberties, and I only do not call you out here and now because of the extremity of the circumstances. Don’t think I failed to see that you left her in the path of that wolf.”

“I didn’t see you rushing to rescue her, and unless I am very much mistaken, you haven’t asked her for her hand yet,” growled Colin.

Rather than answer, Mowbray pulled a ring box from his pocket, gently pulled Penelope’s left glove off, and slid a gold band studded with rubies and diamonds onto her finger. It fit her perfectly.

Colin looked as if he had taken a punch to the stomach.

Penelope felt as though she was watching the scene from a distance. She didn’t move or protest as Mowbray claimed her, or as he lifted her from the ground and held her close.

Portia, on seeing the ring being slid onto her youngest’s finger, shoved through the crowd of gentlemen who had placed themselves between the ongoing shifter drama and the women and children in the tents to run to her daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law to coo and preen in a manner so gaudy and inappropriate that Violet Bridgerton was moved to chivvy Prudence and Philippa toward their mother and then guide the entire group back to the line of carriages along the edge of the park.

“Penelope can celebrate once she has recovered from her ordeal today,” Violet insisted firmly, one arm locked around Portia’s. Mowbray’s agreement and Violet’s insistence were a functionally immovable force, so Portia had no real choice but to allow Mowbray to offer all of them hospitality at his town house for the rest of the afternoon and overnight, to ensure that none of them suffered any ill effects from the events of the day.

Mowbray had deposited the Featheringtons at his townhouse and then left to deal with the aftermath of Twombley’s and James’s reveals and deaths. Penelope watched, silent, as she was swept away by a bevy of maids—who were clearly delighted to have someone to look after instead of maintaining an empty house, for once—bathed, had her hair re-done, and was dressed in one of her favorite day dresses. It was clear that Mowbray had sent to Featherington house for the family’s things, and one of the maids told Penelope that they had been ordered to treat her as if she were already mistress of the house.

Dinner was served to Portia, Phillippa, and Prudence in a small sitting room. Penelope had not made any move to shift from the comfortable armchair that the maids had deposited her in, so eventually a tray was brought to her room by a nervous looking maid and a stern but concerned housekeeper who informed Penelope that if she had not improved by the time Lord Mowbray returned, she was going to recommend a doctor. That galvanized Penelope enough to at least sip at her tea, even if the thought of food was overwhelming. The housekeeper eventually left, but with a promise to check in periodically.

Chapter Text

1813 – England

Penelope drifted off to sleep sometime around midnight, but her dreams were filled with ravening wolves, hunters, and the sight of the light leaving James’s eyes. The dream that finally woke her, heart in her throat and drenched in perspiration, was the one in which Colin stepped to Mowbray to prevent him from killing James, so it was Colin’s throat that Mowbray slit, Colin’s blood that spattered her skin, and Colin’s eyes from which life slowly, agonizingly drained.

Feeling trapped, Penelope kicked free of the blankets she couldn’t remember crawling beneath, wrapped herself in a truly massive shawl, and padded barefoot down the hall to the small library Mowbray had told her was in his townhouse. The clock on the mantle was just chiming half past four in the morning as she entered, and the sky beyond the window was still dark, but beginning to threaten the approaching dawn. The room was cozily lit with oil lamps (the books protected from their flames with glass chimneys), and it smelled of ink and old paper.

Although she could still feel where James’s blood had hit her face and every blink showed her the horror of Colin’s lifeless eyes, the sensations felt further away in this calm room. Breathing slowly, Penelope began silently counting. She could see the clock on the mantelpiece, she could see the matched leather armchair and settee, she could see the inkwell on the desk in the corner. She could see her own bare toes poking out from beneath the hem of her nightgown, and she could see the flickering flame of the closest lamp. Still breathing carefully, she walked further into the room. She touched the barely warm, smooth marble of the mantelpiece. She touched the rough wool of a knitted throw over the raised end of the settee. She touched the textured buckram that bound the book that was closest to her, and she brushed her toe across a threadbare patch on the rug beneath her feet.

“I can hear the clock tick,” came a low, smooth voice from behind Penelope. “I can hear the creak of wood as the house settles, and I can hear the swish of your feet on the carpet.”

Penelope turned to see Mowbray in the doorway, in little more than shirtsleeves and breeches, stocking feet silent on the floor and waistcoat unbuttoned, hanging loose from his shoulders. He leaned against the doorjamb, shadows smudged below his eyes and tiredness in every line of his face. He still managed a small smile for her, as he continued, “I can smell the orange in the soap you used to wash, and old books. If you want something to taste, I can ring for tea.”

Shaking her head, Penelope leaned against the bookshelf behind her. Even just this morning she would have felt safe in a room with this man, but now her instincts were screaming at her to run. The frown that crossed his face was concern, she knew that, but that didn’t comfort her in the least.

“Penelope…” he moved slowly into the room and sat down in the desk chair. It didn’t escape her notice that he had deliberately left her a clear path to the door. He was actively working to make her comfortable.

“I am so, so sorry you had to see that today. And I am so sorry you were endangered. I thought I was going to lose you, and…” He trailed off, a hand rubbing along his jaw. “I promise you, shifters will never put you in that kind of peril again. I’ve just come from a meeting, and the spectacle today had one positive outcome. I believe we have the votes to pass an expansion of the legislation about shifters. I believe we shall be able to chase, apprehend, and arrest them outside of England after the next vote in the next session. No one wants their families so threatened.”

Penelope’s knees buckled, and she slid joltingly down the bookshelf to the floor. He was going to succeed. He would be able to track down the shifter families who had escaped England, and there would be no respite for any of them. More of them would die—maybe most of them. She couldn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry, Penelope, I’m so sorry.” Mowbray was there, before her. He was holding her hand in one of his, the other stroking gently over her curls. “Your resilience is impressive, but I shouldn’t have forgotten that this is likely the first time you’ve ever seen a man die. You did so well today, my love. You have handled all of this better even than young soldiers under my command, and I had no right to expect or ask it of you.”

It was all too much for Penelope. His face was too close to hers, the pressure of his hand in her hair too hard, and the feeling of restraint from her hand sitting in his was practically unbearable. She was pinned against the bookcase, with no room to spread her wings, no avenue of escape. She had to make him move, get him away from her.

“My...my lord,” she gasped, mouth almost too dry to speak.

“Harlow,” he corrected, warmly. “I think it’s all right to be on first-name terms after today, Penelope.”

“But we...you never asked...” Try as she might, Penelope could not get the words “You never asked me to marry you” out. Her pounding heart and shallow breaths were driving her to distraction, and that distraction made her want to shift, to fly, to escape—the single thing she dared not do. Yet despite her soft, stuttering syllables, Mowbray seemed to understand.

Releasing her, he sat back on his haunches with a chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “I supposed I didn’t formally ask you, did I? I had meant to do this so differently—romantically, even, as much as an old soldier could be.”

Just the few extra inches of distance between them made breathing easier for Penelope, and she focused on calming herself, barely noticing when Mowbray took her hand and gently pulled the ring from her finger. She was too busy trying not to breathe too quickly, to slow her racing heart.

Rather than asking Penelope to stand or taking up the traditional position, Mowbray stayed where he was and held the ring out between them. The light from one of the lamps caught the rubies as Mowbray held the ring, casting red motes of light across his hand. Penelope couldn’t suppress a shudder and a soft gasp as each drop of light turned for a moment into a drop of James’s blood. The metallic tang of blood filled her nostrils for a long moment, and her face, though long since scrubbed clean, suddenly erupted in fire precisely where it had been spattered.

Focus, she thought, forcing away the memories. You cannot lose yourself now. Cannot surrender.

“Penelope Featherington,” Mowbray began. “I did not come to London this season looking for love. I came with the expectation of doing battle, and like an angel of mercy, you floated into my life. I admire your steadfastness, your calm, your compassion. I discovered a new pleasure in discussing books with you.

“I had expected to die a soldier, with no heirs or close family to mourn me or pass down the title that soldiering earned me. But you...Penelope, you opened a new horizon. Suddenly the idea of dying on a far-flung battlefield seemed a tragedy, because it would mean leaving you behind, and any children we might be blessed with. I badly wanted to know what it would be like to have you by my side, to have children with you, and to build a future together that had nothing to do with Bonaparte or shifters. You are a new sun that has risen in my life, Penelope, and I cannot wait to share this new day with you. Will you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”

Between heartbeats she saw that future in her mind’s eye. Saw the opportunities to travel with his regiment, to see the continent and collect books from every city they visited. Saw long, lingering picnics on the banks of Scottish lochs with tender looks and kisses leading to something more. Saw the strawberry blonde toddler with big, curious blue eyes and a serious expression toddling after his father while she cradled his new sister. Saw a life filled with books and music and laughter. A life where she never shifted again, did her best to forget about her owl.

Another heartbeat and Penelope knew, right down to the marrow of her bones, the kernel of her personhood, that she could never give up shifting. Her future, if she looked past Mowbray’s pretty words and dreams, would be far bleaker. She could feel the kiss of a razor-sharp blade at her throat already. She would be little more than a Desdemona, murdered by her husband in their marriage bed for an immutable aspect of who and what she was.

A third heartbeat and she could feel him as he dragged her across the bed and into his lap, one arm closing around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and keeping her pressed to his chest. The soft schink of a knife being unsheathed accompanied a gentle kiss to her temple. As he placed sharp, cold metal against the pulse in her neck, his cheek replaced his lips against her head.

“Close your eyes, Penelope,” he breathed, tone ever-so-gentle.

“Penelope?” The question dragged her out of her head and back to the here and now. Mowbray was crouched before her in his library, engagement ring extended. She had waited just a heartbeat too long to respond.

She was spared the need to respond immediately by the housekeeper barging in the door.

“My lord,” the severe-looking woman said. “My apologies, but there is a couple here to turn over a shifter to your custody.” From the open door came the sounds of a woman whimpering beneath the alternating sounds of a child wailing and a distinctly canine-sounding howl that went straight to Penelope’s heart.

The Twombleys were wolf shifters, but no one in the family had children young enough to fit the sounds emanating from the doorway. The same could be said of the fox and Great Dane shifter families she knew of among the ton. This was a merchant family then, or one of the poor families of London. She had some vague sense of the merchant shifter families, but nothing as granular as her knowledge of the ton shifter families. To her chagrin, she couldn’t keep track of all the shifter lineages in London’s poor and working families; she had neither the access nor the resources. She had no idea who these parents were, or what had driven them to hand their child over to the Lord Provost Marshal, who would send the child on missions for the good of England—and the detriment of the child.

And heaven help her, she found she did not want to know who it was. She didn’t want to know if they had too many children to feed and this was a desperate attempt to make too little stretch further. Didn’t want to know if they simply felt, as so many did, that they must follow the law and hand over shifter children. Couldn’t bear to discover whether they simply hated shifters. If she had to look and see terror in a child’s eyes, she would break, and nothing would put her back together.

“I hate to interrupt us now,” said Mowbray, rising and absently tucking the ring into his pocket. “But I’m afraid I must deal with this. Would you like to accompany me? Your presence will likely calm it more than mine.” He held out a hand to help her off the floor.

It. Not “the child” or even a name. He had simply referred to the living being as “It.” As though the child was a tool, not a human. Penelope’s stomach roiled violently. She couldn’t save this child any more than she could have saved Twombley or James, but she would not be complicit in this either.

“I’m afraid I’m still rather worn out, Harlow.” His name felt wrong in her mouth, and hoped her attempt at a smile hid her revulsion. “I beg you to excuse me.”

An adult woman’s sobbing had joined the cries of the child, and Mowbray cast a distracted look over his shoulder, toward the cacophony. He clearly wanted to deal with this, and quickly.

Penelope took a chance, saying, “Surely with all your experience, dealing with this yourself will be faster than if you had to coach me as well. Speed would seem to be preferable in this case.” She took his hand and allowed herself to be gently but firmly pulled to her feet.

The sound of a slap and a yelp from the hallway seemed to make up Mowbray’s mind. He pressed a quick kiss to Penelope’s forehead before turning on his heel and leaving the room, followed quickly by his housekeeper. The woman pulled the door firmly shut behind her. 

Standing in the sudden quiet of the room, Penelope took a deep breath. Her normally analytical mind was silent, still. Her owl was also quiet, simply waiting. A second breath, then a third. As the dawn shot bright fingers into the sky, a muzzy sort of clarity descended on Penelope. Without conscious decision, without care for consequences, she opened the window and sat on the sill. A moment later she was spreading her wings and flying out into the dawn, with the wind in her face and a sense of chains falling away behind her as she spiraled higher and higher away from Mowbray’s townhouse.

She had cleared the dense townhouses and was flitting through the woods on someone’s estate when her owl finally stopped enjoying the flight long enough to address the situation.

“Where are we? Where are we going? What is the plan?” her owl asked.

Penelope offered a sort of mental shrug in answer; she had no plan and no idea how to remedy the situation she was in now. Not that she truly cared that she must have been missed by now, and that the open window would tell Portia that Penelope had quite literally flown the coop. In flight, she was free. There was no expectation that she marry well, no threat of reprisal in the form of the worst marriage her Mama could dream up if the advantageous match fell through. In the sky, she didn’t have to worry that she still hadn’t sent a letter to Lady Twombley explaining what had happened, nor a letter to James’s family with her condolences. She did not have to manage the shifters in the sky. As long as she flew, she was free.

“Free to what? Scorch our eyes in this light?” groused her owl.

That was a fair enough point; it was well past the point in the morning where owls should be in their nests settling in to sleep the day away. If anyone were to see her now, her presence would be remarked upon, which would give Portia enough information to find her, eventually.

“Fine. Pick a tree and we’ll—” a snapping twig stopped Penelope mid thought. It was morning now, still early, but not so early that motivated gentlemen wouldn’t be out shooting. She should have paid more attention to where they were; it was quite usual for gentlemen to go shooting the morning after the grand promenade. If she had stumbled across a shooting party…

The crack of a rifle confirmed her worst fears.

Penelope flew up, zigzagging to try to make herself a poor target. She didn’t dare flip her head around to try to see where the men were. She wasn’t good enough at flying to do so and not hit something. A second crack rang out, and she flinched away from the spray of bird shot that hit a tree trunk to her left. She then immediately flinched back to her left as male voices rose to her right—the sudden midair jog actually caused her to stumble, losing speed and altitude. She flapped harder, fighting her owl’s control in her panic and desperation to get away, to regain speed and height. The fight between shifter and owl further scuttled their ability to fly—only some gentleman’s poor marksmanship saved Penelope’s life as a third rifle crack sounded.

Shock and sudden pain forced a screech from Penelope’s beak; red-hot points of impact burned along one wing and shoulder, with a few in the side of her chest. How she avoided shifting back to her human form in midair then and there she never knew, but somehow she remained an owl. Her human instinct to clutch a wounded arm to her chest was catastrophic, however. She pinwheeled through the air, losing all sense of what was up and what was down. Her single attempt to extend the wing again, to stabilize herself, was so acutely painful that she screeched again and pulled in back into herself.

Pinwheeling through the air seemed to take years, but when Penelope finally hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud and an involuntary pitiful hoot as all the fair was forced from her body, it seemed to have only taken a moment. She was on her back, couldn’t stay there. She thrashed weakly, trying to right herself, to get up, to move before any of the gentlemen came along to finish the job. Unfortunately, rolling toward her left side wasn’t an option since that wing wouldn’t take her weight, and she didn’t have leverage to push herself up on her right side without it as a prop. She was also losing blood; she could smell it, and if she cared to flip her head around, she could see it pooling around her. As she thrashed, refusing to believe that she was weakening, she became aware of raised male voices; an argument.

“I am not stalking into underbrush just to go find some owl that will die on its own anyway—”

“It’s poor form to just let it suffer like that!” That second voice was familiar, almost comforting, but Penelope couldn’t place it.

“Owls aren’t any good for eating or as trophies, nobody cares!” The first voice was petulant, like a child.

“Well then you shouldn’t have taken three shots at the ruddy thing,” said a third voice. “Now go do the decent thing and put the poor creature out of its misery.”

“And let you lot waltz off and bag all the pheasant? I hardly think so!” The petulant whine in the first voice gave Penelope a sense of hope. Perhaps the fellow’s companions wouldn’t want to deal with his nonsense, and would simply move along. If she had privacy she could shift back to human and get herself up, out of here. Find help. The trees above her head blurred and the world seemed to spin under her as the second voice dashed her hopes:

“Well I refuse to let die slowly and agonizingly!”

“Catch up later then, and you better not complain when you owe us all money for bagging the fewest pheasants,” snarled the first voice.

“Arrogant prick,” growled the second voice, sotto voce.  

Penelope redoubled her attempts to get up in her owl form, but she was terrifyingly tired and every movement spiked sharp pain through the general burning sensation. Soft hoots escaped her as she tried and failed once more to shift herself. Her owl ears heard the footsteps before she felt them, coming directly for her.

Although she had never been on a shooting party, she had spent enough time at balls and parties listening around the edges of conversations to know that etiquette demanded that gentlemen not leave a wounded animal in pain, and whoever was coming toward her had enough decency that he would kill her without a second thought. The odds of this gentleman being a shifter himself were low; those that attended shooting parties or hunts for social reasons generally were such excellent marksmen that they could miss any shot they wanted to avoid accidentally murdering a fellow shifter in an unlucky situation. But then again…if there was a shifter in the party, he might have noticed her erratic flight and made a guess about what she was. And if that were the case, she could shift and ask his help.

Her brief hope that he might be a shifter and would be safe to shift before and explain herself to were dashed as Colin Bridgerton appeared in her line of sight. Underneath his scowl, he was pale, and there were shadowy smudges beneath his eyes. His cravat was hanging loose, with barely an attempt to fashion it into a presentable knot. Most gentlemen wore hats when shooting, but his was missing, his Bridgerton curls askew. Even the waistcoat visible beneath his long brown coat was askew; he had misaligned the buttons and the bottom two weren’t done at all. She had never seen him in such a state; was momentarily shocked that he had left the house so.

That it took him long moments to find her spoke to his distraction; her belly was bright white against dirt and some scrubby grass, and she should have been immediately identifiable. A pang of guilt went through Penelope; she should have tried to find a way to let him know she was all right after yesterday’s events. It had been a challenging day for more than just the shifters present. She found she wanted little more than to smooth the lines created by tension and worry off his face, and smooth down those errant curls. She couldn’t even tell herself that this was simply blood loss talking; this was Colin. 

Colin, who finally looked and saw her. Colin, whose sigh held both sadness and resignation. Colin, who snugged his rifle into his shoulder and levelled the barrel at Penelope’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly. “This will be over in a moment.”

She could hear the creak of metal on metal as his finger began to squeeze the trigger.

Penelope shifted back to human form.

It was too late to stop his finger from completing its motion, but the millisecond Colin registered the pale face and red hair on the ground before him, he swung the barrel wide.

Penelope didn’t even hear the shot; she was too wrapped up in her owl’s awe-struck words:

“That’s our mate.”

Chapter Text

1813 – England

“Jesus Christ!” bellowed Colin, face going tomato red and then snow white. His knees hit the ground before the gun did, but Colin paid the weapon no mind as he yanked Penelope into his arms and held her close. He was trembling, breath coming in harsh gasps. After a long moment, one hand left Penelope’s back to stroke over her hair, stopping to check the pulse in her throat, then wandered to make sure she was all in one piece. His fingers floated over top of the wounds in her arm, and even the ones in her shoulder and side that were covered by her gown as if he already knew where they were and didn’t want to cause her anymore pain.

For her part, Penelope simply nuzzled into Colin, calm for the first time in days. She breathed, slow and deep, and as Colin assured himself that he hadn’t hurt her, his breathing shifted to match hers. For long moments they simply breathed together, each taking comfort in the other’s presence and reveling in their closeness—somehow the most natural, correct thing in the world, simply an extension of how they fit together when dancing.

Eventually, the pain of multiple bullet wounds—which were still bleeding—overcame the euphoria of discovering that Colin was her mate and the calm and comfort of simply letting him hold her. His head was already coming up to meet her gaze when a shout snapped both their heads around.

“Come on already, Bridgerton! You put the bird out of its misery, you don’t need to give it a funeral too!” The first voice Penelope had identified had only increased its whining quality, and she rolled her eyes. Colin outright snarled, eyes flicking to the blood dripping down Penelope’s arm.

“I’m heading back,” he shouted. “My head aches abominably and cleaning up your messes hasn’t helped!”

“Fine, but you forfeit the bet!”

Colin replied with a string of words Penelope was entirely sure that Violet Bridgerton would have washed her adult son’s mouth out with soap for simply knowing, never mind for throwing them at another gentleman. The general bark of laughter that it sparked among the shooting party slowly died away as they traveled away from the pair.

With a quick sigh, Colin turned his attention back to the wounded woman in his lap. Reaching up, he jerked the loose cravat from around his neck and began to wrap her arm, putting pressure over the four entry wounds to try to slow the bleeding.

“Did I bleed on you?” she asked, trying not to cry at the pressure of the cravat.

“I’m not so much concerned with you ruining my coat as the fact that you nearly let me shoot you. My God, Pen, I could have—” he couldn’t finish the sentence, instead focusing on smoothing the neckcloth across her skin and tying it where the knot wouldn’t press directly into any of the wounds. Neither of them made any move to get her out of his lap.

“Pen, I can’t get to the other five places you were hit,” Coln finally said, as spots of blood appeared on the fabric of her gown. “Not while keeping your reputation from irreparable damage. We should get you to a doctor.”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“You were shot!”

“And I cannot be seen by a doctor because if I am, Mama and Mowbray will find me.”

“Pen...” Colin looked skyward for a moment, and took a deep breath. “I am not objecting to this extraordinary, sudden change in your plans. I wish to be extremely clear on that point; I would very much prefer that you did not marry him. But the last time I saw you, you looked unequivocally engaged. What on earth happened between then and now?”

“I can’t marry him, Colin.”

“I agree, especially since you’re a shifter—God, Pen, you’re a shifter and you were going marry him—”

“You’re my...well my owl says...you’re my mate.”

This time Colin looked up, then still seemed not to know what to say, and closed his eyes, dropping his forehead to the top of Penelope’s head.

“We’re going to address that once you’re no longer bleeding,” he announced to her hair. “Which circles us neatly back around to why I can’t take you to a doctor.”

“I ran away from Mowbray’s London house. I didn’t tell him I was going. I didn’t tell Mama. I just opened a window, shifted, and flew. I rather thought they’d have reported me missing by now, but there is no explanation for how and why this happened that I can offer without—”

“Without exposing yourself as a shifter to the crown’s shifter hunter,” Colin finished for her. “And I can’t just take you back to Bridgerton House for the same reason.”

“If we can get somewhere private, I can probably dig the bird shot out myself.”

“You can—have you done this before!?”

Before she could answer, he ploughed ahead. “Do not answer that, I do not want to know. And what about infection? What if you can’t get to one of the pellets? Can you even see the one beneath that arm? And how do I know that one is there?”

“That is part of being mates,” chimed in Penelope’s owl, sounding tired. “You will always know when the other is hurt, and when one of you experiences a strong emotion, the other will know. It is meant to help mated pairs survive in a hostile environment and to help humans overcome the difficulties that can sometimes come up when a mate reveals themself.”

Penelope relayed her owl’s words to Colin, whose face didn’t seem to know whether to be elated or furious or simply swamped in love—all of which she was also aware of in a corner of her mind. It was similar to her awareness of her owl and was just as comforting and natural. She almost smiled; having three people in her head should have felt crowded, but instead she felt complete.

“Stop enjoying this,” muttered Colin.

“I don’t believe I will,” Penelope responded.

“Fine. Listen, can you walk? We have to at least get you out of this bit of forest and looked after. Wait—” He leaned back, looking at her quizzically, wheels turning behind his eyes. “Can you shift back to owl form?”

She did so, careful with her talon placement. They wouldn’t have any trouble piercing the wool of his trousers, but he had one foot tucked in, and the leather of his boots would withstand them. Her left wing drooped, and blood stained her white feathers. The cravat apparently counted as part of her clothing; it wasn’t wrapped around her wing now. She shuddered a little with a fresh wave of pain from the shift. She looked a bit of a mess, but was surprised when she looked into Colin’s face.

He wore a boyish grin that was pure delight and awe; nothing of the shock, distaste, or outright hatred she instinctively expected was present.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, reverently, reaching out to gently stroke her head. “I don’t know how I didn’t see you in there the first time. You’re much redder than the average barn owl, like a fire flecked with ashes. And the eyes...I can see you in there, Pen.”

Penelope could have cried. No one had ever told her that her owl was beautiful; no one had ever valued it before. In her head, her owl preened at the compliment, and Penelope offered a soft, purring call, forgetting that he would have been aware of a flood of emotion that strong.

“Can you understand me like this, or do you need to be human for me to explain the plan?” asked Colin.

Penelope cocked her head, then nodded—a very odd motion for an owl’s head and neck, but enough to prompt Colin along.

“Excellent,” he said. In short order he had explained, and Penelope had acquiesced, to a plan that involved him essentially stuffing her carefully into a saddlebag and smuggling her into his rooms at Bridgerton House, where they could look after her wounds and plan from there.

Wrapped and held as still as possible against Colin’s chest inside a saddlebag, Penelope drifted, exhausted and in pain, and allowed Colin’s feelings to wash over her—it was a new experience to know—truly know—beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was loved.

By the time the rhythm changed, and Colin was walking through the house, Penelope was feeling muzzy and exhausted, and strangely anxious. Her heart kept jumping about her chest, and she was panting for breath. She still had a distant sense of her owl and Colin in her head, but couldn’t clearly connect to either one. She was losing control over her form as well; in another few moments, she was going to shift and couldn’t remember precisely why that would be such a bad idea.

A door closing loudly and a lock clicking shut next to her head startled her so badly that she lost control over her shape, shifting back to human in an explosion of creaking leather, snapping stitches, and tearing fabric—the waistcoat she had been wrapped in. She thudded to the wooden floor of Colin’s bedroom. In a moment, his concerned face was in hers, and he was pulling her to her feet and leading her to his bed.

“Isn’t this how debutantes get ruined?” she mumbled. He snorted but didn’t answer as he guided her down and pulled a blanket over her. She breathed a little easier in her human shape, and the warmth from the blanket and the room in general was helping her focus. Colin was puttering around the room, putting water over the fire to heat, digging out an old bed sheet and tearing it to strips, and finding a tiny pair of long tongs.

The burning and pain in her arm and side had dulled enough that Penelope had nearly drifted off to sleep when Colin sat beside her, looking worried and sheepish.

“I can start with the pellets in your arm, Pen, but...” he turned bright red. “I’m afraid that your gown will have to come off before I can get the others. Maybe other...er...layers as well. And we’re going to have to be quiet, everyone’s home.”

“You have sisters, I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed.”

“You are—” Colin’s voice was loud, and he checked himself. “You are not one of my sisters,” he said, fervently.

“I need your help with the buttons. And probably to stand.”

Colin rose, and steadied Pen as she put her feet on the floor and carefully transferred her weight to them. The room spun around her, but with Colin to balance with, she remained upright. She was also acutely aware that he didn’t remove his hand from under her good arm to help her with her gown; he deftly undid her buttons with one hand and let the gown slide off her arms—it needed a little help over his cravat, which was still wrapped around her left arm—and to the floor, where she stepped out of it.

When Colin swore sharply under his breath, Penelope turned her head to the mirror on his dressing table. Her outer dress had not been terribly bloody, and there were no holes in the fabric of her short stays or chemise, but the fabric of both was a worryingly deep red from shoulder to waist, and her shift was tacky, sticking to her where it had absorbed the blood.

“You might need more help than I can give you,” he said. “Please, can I summon a real doctor?”

“No, it will give Mama and Lord Mowbray a way to find me. I trust you, Colin.”

“How…?”

Instead of answering, Pen reached behind her with her good arm and tugged at the laces on her short stays until they were loose enough to slide down over her hips and belly. Once her stays landed on the floor, Penelope reached for the ribbon at the neck of her chemise and loosened the neck enough to pull her arm—slowly and with a few not-entirely-suppressed whimpers of pain—out of the sleeve so it fell beneath her arm. Colin would be able to get to all the pellets either around the now-diagonal neckline or through the empty sleeve without entirely ruining the last shreds of her modesty.

It took long moments of staring up at the ceiling and idly tracing patterns in the plaster and paint for Penelope to realize she was lying down on Colin’s bed again. And she wondered for far too long why things were moving before she registered Colin’s voice.

“Penelope if you don’t answer me, I am going to call a doctor and hang the consequences!” His voice was low and insistent; something like fear was behind it. Penelope tried to focus, but found herself floating just beyond her own ability to comprehend.

“What?”

“Pen I’ve just dug three pellets out of your arm, and you haven’t made a sound.”

She turned her head, slowly, to see the tongs in his hands and his hands themselves covered in red.

“Oh. Should I have?”

“Having bullets dug out of you is supposed to hurt. I could feel…I believe an echo of the sensation? And even if it’s only a fraction of what you’re feeling, I would not expect you to be this calm. I’m worried you’re going into shock, and that can be just as dangerous as the wounds themselves. You have to stay with me, Pen. You cannot slip away from me. Unless your…your owl is doing something, and I am misreading the situation?”

“I can’t stop the pain,” said Penelope’s owl. “But I can help you drift. It’s not going to work for much longer though, so you might as well focus on Colin.”

Penelope nodded, but the frown on Colin’s face deepened.

“Pen?”

“Answer him!” her owl screeched. The sense of being wrapped in cotton wool lessened for Penelope, and a dull, throbbing pain in her arm, shoulder, and side intruded rudely on her consciousness. She managed to relay her owl’s words, feeling her body tense as the pain grew again and she focused on Colin.

“I have a few more pellets to fish out, but keep talking to me, Pen.” He wasn’t moving, still watching her face.

“Talk about what?”

He sighed, half a smile crossing his face. “Whatever you like. Just as long as you talk to me.” His fingers were moving across her skin, gently pulling and prodding around the pellet in her shoulder. It hurt, but she was still muzzy enough that the sensation of his fingers was more distracting than the pain.

“I cannot imagine what to talk about with your fingers doing that.”

The grin on Colin’s face was a shadow of his usual mischievous one, but it was there beneath a sudden flush. “Very well, I shall ask you a question, then.” He fell silent for a moment, focusing on her shoulder. He moved the tongs, but stopped abruptly, eyes flicking back to her face. “Would it be terribly rude to ask you about your owl form?”  

“Not at all,” she said. “But she’s more than just my shifted form. She’s—” Penelope gasped as fire filled her shoulder. The tongs had purchase around the pellet, but it was somehow more painful coming out than it had been going in.

“Breathe,” said Colin, focused on his task. “She’s what?”

Footsteps thundering down the hall stopped Penelope from answering, and the thwarted attempt someone made to open the door—thank goodness Colin had locked it—had both their hearts in their mouths. 

“Colin for the love of God let me in!” Eloise’s voice was panicked, but Colin was reluctant to open the door and reveal Penelope, even to her best friend.

“Can’t a fellow have a moment’s privacy in this house?” snapped Colin.

“Lady Featherington is here.” Eloise’s voice was half whisper, half scream. “She is saying Penelope has been kidnapped.”

“Just Mama?” murmured Penelope.

Colin, face pale and tense, looked from the door to Penelope and back before striding over to the door and pulling Eloise inside. Then he locked the door again.

Taking in the scene—Penelope lying on Colin’s bed in a deeply askew, bloody shift, her dress and stays on the floor and blood all over Colin’s hands—Eloise stumbled back against the closed and locked door.

“What in heaven’s name has happened?” she gasped.

“El, it’s…” Penelope faltered, unsure what to say. “It’s not what it looks like” seemed somehow incriminating, and “I was accidentally shot” would invite more questions than Penelope was prepared to answer.

Colin, eyes on the window, cursed. “Mowbray’s carriage just pulled up,” he growled.

Surging up from the bed, Penelope scrabbled for her stays and gown, shoving down the pain from the pellets still buried in her flesh and the wounds from where the others had been. “He cannot find me here,” she said.

“Is this not the perfect way to get out of marrying him?” asked Colin.

“Don’t be foolish,” said Eloise, as she helped Penelope settle her stays in place and reached for the laces. “Pen is practically naked in your room and you’re both covered in her blood. You’d be arrested, Colin. We’ve got to sneak her out of here.”

The pained squeak from Penelope as Eloise snugged her stay laces stabbed into Colin’s heart. “Loosen them for heaven’s sake,” he said. “I hadn’t gotten all the shot out of her.”

“If they’re looser, my gown won’t fit,” gasped Pen.

“Does that matter—”

“Yes, if we’re to sneak her out,” snapped Eloise.

“It would be easier to sneak her out if she shifted,” said Colin.

Eloise’s hands stilled on Penelope’s buttons, and Penelope started to tremble.

“You didn’t know,” Colin breathed. “Pen, I’m sorry.”

“She—” Eloise’s voice strangled and cut off. She took a deep breath, and finished buttoning Penelope’s dress before she tried again. “She cannot sh—” Eloise swallowed hard and shook her head before continuing— “shift with the Lord Provost Marshall in the house. That’s the height of folly. We can get her to my room.”

“But we cannot hide her there,” Colin objected.

“You cannot hide me at all,” said Penelope. She reached behind her to clasp Eloise’s hand; a silent thank-you for her acceptance. “The best we can do now is change the circumstances under which they find me.”

“We cannot go back to the hunter,” shrilled Penelope’s owl. “It will hurt our mate!”

“We aren’t staying with him. This is not the time to get sentimental!” Despite her sharpness with her owl, the thought of going back to Mowbray, even temporarily, hurt. She still understood her Mama’s logic for a match with Mowbray, but logic paled in comparison to the simple knowledge that she and Colin belonged together.

The long moments it took to convince her owl of this allowed Eloise and Colin to sneak Penelope across the house and to Eloise’s room. Colin was not in the room when the door burst open to admit Portia Featherington and Violet Bridgerton, but Eloise was seated on the bed next to Penelope, clutching both her hands. Sun glinted off golden hair in the hallway—Mowbray was there, hovering like an anxious mother hen, but maintaining propriety by waiting in the hallway.

Exhausted and overwhelmed, Penelope simply faced the barrage of questions—concerned and furious from Ladies Bridgerton and Featherington, respectively—with a simple answer: “I got away.” Which was true, if not wholly accurate. It also meant that there was little in terms of proper explanation that Penelope was required to give. A doctor was summoned to look after her wounds. There was a brief, whispered discussion about him checking to see if she had been subjected to other kinds of violence. That Penelope had objected to; there was no reason, and she did not wish for the fuss. Portia tried to insist, but Violet and Mowbray both agreed that taking Penelope at her word that nothing had happened was enough, and the doctor was not to potentially further traumatize the young lady without cause. Portia still tried to argue that ensuring Penelope’s virtue was intact outweighed the girl’s account and wishes, but Mowbray declared that he was not so enamored with virtue that he would blame Penelope for something that she said had not happened. His glower at Portia was so strong that it snuffed any further argument she might have considered making.

Mowbray was banished as the doctor made quick work of the bird shot wounds, but Portia, Violet, and Eloise all sat in with Penelope. She refused the laudanum the doctor ordered, because she didn’t want to risk losing control over her shifting. Once she was patched up and had changed into clean clothing—a maid had been sent scurrying across the square to the Featherington household—the party descended on the Bridgerton sitting room.

Penelope was planted—with some vigor, it must be said—on a couch by her mother, who then moved to collect some tea for herself and sit with Violet on the couch opposite the one Penelope was on. Eloise was admonished to say nothing about the morning’s events to anyone and sent from the room; Penelope felt oddly alone once Eloise had left, and the sense of Colin she had in her head only increased in anxiety. The servants were also summarily dismissed after they refilled the refreshment table. Mowbray put together a plate of finger sandwiches, sweetmeats, and bonbons for Penelope, placing the plate on her lap and holding a cup of strong tea for her as he settled next to her.

Penelope flinched ever so slightly as his leg brushed against hers; she couldn’t help it. She had come so close to escaping the fate that had sent her into flight the previous night, and physical contact from him, even gentle, innocuous contact, felt as oppressive as shackles. Mowbray’s soldier’s eye noticed the motion, and he shifted in his seat to ensure that he was not in contact with her.

“Eat something,” he said softly. “Slowly. It’ll help ground you.”

Her stomach gurgled, and she carefully selected a chocolate petit four. Taking a tiny bite of the corner and chewing slowly, Penelope found that Mowbray was right. She felt less untethered, and her senses of her owl and Colin sharpened. Her stomach also growled, reminding her that she had eaten nothing since before the events of the previous afternoon. She finished the petit four, then drank half her cup of tea before methodically beginning to work through the rest of the food before her. Having food in her belly also allowed her to focus on the conversation her mother and Violet were having.

“A week is simply not soon enough. Penelope and our family will be absolutely ruined if any word gets out that she spent the night who-knows-where, entirely unchaperoned. Surely we can put together an engagement party for tomorrow night,” Portia insisted.

“Lord Mowbray is unconcerned, Lady Featherington,” said Violet, in a placating tone that Penelope often heard her use when one of her adult children were being unreasonable and she was reaching the end of her patience. “And there are risks to moving too quickly as well. To hold an engagement party a mere two days after such a public proposal could be interpreted as desperation or a sign that something untoward has happened. A week is a reasonable time to wait.”

“I rather think that settles it, then,” said Mowbray, setting his teacup down with a decisive clink. “In a week’s time, we shall have an engagement party at my London house.” He did not so much as turn his head to see the horrified look on Portia’s face before saying, “I consider the matter settled, Lady Featherington.” He rose and bowed to Violet. “Lady Bridgerton, you have my thanks for your assistance in this matter.”

Penelope’s chest constricted—she was not prepared to leave, not now, not with her mother and Mowbray. She took a deep breath and forced herself to keep breathing when she felt the sense of Colin in her mind spike in anxiety. Of course he would react to her sudden worry; she had to get it under control. And she didn’t dare forget about her new connection with her fated mate, lest Colin get it in his head to do something heroic and Bridgerton-esque—likely at the most inopportune moment possible.

“Oh, you are not leaving already?” Violet asked. “I insist you stay for luncheon.”

“That is too kind, but—” Mowbray and Portia stopped speaking as simultaneously as they had begun, eyeing each other uncertainly.

“I admit to a slightly selfish motive,” said Violet, still pleasant and smiling and aggressively ignoring the awkwardness between her guests. “Penelope has been like a daughter to me since she and Eloise were first playmates, and I should like to fully reassure myself that she is alright. I’m sure you understand, Lady Featherington. The daughters of our hearts can be just as dear as those daughters to whom we give birth. And I’m sure Eloise would like a chance to assure herself that her best friend is well.”

“Your offer is generous, my lady,” said Mowbray, clearly searching for and failing to find a polite reason to decline the invitation.  

“Penelope needs her rest,” tried Portia.

“Surely it will be more restful for her to remain here than to immediately be carted across town. Besides, if you are to marry Penelope, my lord, I am sure we shall see lots of each other as time goes on, and I should like you both to be comfortable and welcome at Bridgerton House.” Violet stood, taking the arm Mowbray automatically offered and looping her free arm through Portia’s. “Come, let me give you a tour while we wait. Penelope can rest and we can become better acquainted!”

Seemingly helpless in the face of Lady Violet Bridgerton, Mowbray threw a final look over his shoulder, and Penelope offered him a small smile so he would go without a fuss. As the three adults left the room, Penelope put down her half-empty plate, slumped back into the couch cushions, and closed her eyes. She truly was exhausted; the wounds the bird shot had left (and those the doctor had caused to get two particularly stubborn ones out) throbbed dully and prevented her from falling asleep the moment her eyes closed, but she was grateful for the moment of quiet. Her owl seemed to be on the cusp of sleep as well, silent in Penelope’s head.

For a few breaths they rested, simply existing.

It was not long before Penelope’s mind ground back into motion. She had to write to the Twombleys. She had to figure out where Mowbray was with his shifter legislation and warn the community. She had to write a Whistledown; one would be expected after the events of the grand promenade. She had to speak to Colin. She had to figure out how to escape an impending marriage that she absolutely did not want.

It was too much, and most of it was on the same timeframe.

The sound of the door opening and footsteps in the room was nearly enough to make Penelope open her eyes, but she truly was exhausted. Her eyes stayed closed as she waited for the door to shut—a sound that never materialized. Big hands enveloped hers, and Colin’s voice whispered her name.

“Eloise is watching the door, but mother has dragged Lady Featherington and Lord Mowbray up to the farthest corners of the house. We can sneak you out now—”

“No, we can’t.” Penelope opened her eyes and sat up. “Colin, I can’t go anywhere but home now. We have a week until the engagement ball. There is enough time between now and then to come up with a plan. There’s no point in going off half-cocked again.”

His hands tightened on hers, and the sense of Colin in her head was distressed, but he nodded, and gently kissed her hands.

“Just tell me what the plan is, Pen,” he said. “I will follow your lead.”

Chapter Text

1813 – England

Dearest Gentle Reader,

After the tragic events of the Grand Promenade for the Twombley and Langhan families, the ton is suddenly abuzz with happier news. Yes, dear reader, our tin soldier and doll have announced an engagement: Miss Penelope Featherington to the Lord Provost Marshal, Sir Harlow Collins, the Viscount Mowbray. They say that war makes for strange bedfellows, but I doubt that even the great Boney could have predicted this unusual match. Certainly, her Majesty failed to predict it, although surprisingly she has expressed no ire over the match. Perhaps she is softening to gentlemen of her court acting first and informing her later? Or perhaps, like Lydia Bennet, her head has been turned by a red coat. 

Regardless, the engagement ball promises to be the event of the season. Invitations have gone out to all families of the ton and to every officer in England and on the continent who could reasonably be expected to attend—even this author has received an invitation. Rumor has it that the ballroom at Lord Mowbray’s London house will be the room where not just one, but several things happen. A formal celebration of an engagement and a number of backroom deals and meetings to ensure that the new legislation to allow shifters to be hunted by English forces on the continent passes.

Politics are not generally this author’s preferred focus, but when a debutante becomes engaged to a figure such as the Lord Provost Marshal, politics slide in whether one enjoys them or not. This author will be following the events of surrounding this engagement and future nuptials with far greater interest than the dry political motions moving through parliament; that is a promise.

- Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

There was no plan. Penelope had written to the Twombleys and the Langhans and published her Whistledown, but between her mother’s frantic planning and preparation for the ball and constant back-and-forthing to the modiste, she hadn’t had a single opportunity to gather additional information about the shifter legislation, let alone figure out how to get out of her engagement.

The polite smile she had pasted on her face and the fact that she was murmuring polite non-answers to the soldier guiding her across the dance floor did nothing to hide the fact that she had been treading on toes and having hers trodden on since the dance floor had opened shortly after the queen had arrived at the party. Mowbray had taken her hand for that first dance, and though Penelope had focused on him, had not once allowed her eyes to flick about the room, she could feel Colin watch her and could feel his anxiety that they had not managed to communicate blossom into real panic that he would lose her tonight.

They had not even managed to find each other in the crush of people between dances. The latest issue of Whistledown had had its intended effect, and encouraged shifter families to attend tonight to avoid suspicion. The room was so packed that people could barely move and the temperature had rapidly gone from stifling to oppressive. The ambient heat had caused the candles to soften, and only the quick work of a footman had prevented one from dropping on an unsuspecting matron’s head. Older gentlemen and old soldiers dozed on chairs and settees around the edges of the room, and debutante fans flapped rapidly—moving more than alleviating the heat.

As her current dance partner bowed to her and left her politely at the edge of the floor, Penelope scanned the room as it shimmered through heat waves. Debutantes, soldiers, career parliamentarians, and members of the queen’s court moved slowly, smears of color heaving and shifting through the miasma of heat without resolving into distinct figures in Penelope’s eyes. They were shadowed and highlighted by the overhead chandelier and wall sconces around the room, and bright bursts of color—Portia’s floral arrangements—gave the whole thing a surreal feel. Penelope was already feeling malaise from the heat, and the almost unnatural motion and colors threatened to make her nauseous. She had to keep her smile pasted on and find Colin.

“I don’t know what is wrong with you tonight, but fix your expression. You look possessed,” an all-too-familiar voice snarled in her ear. “Lord Mowbray took several lords to the other room to chat, thank goodness, but people will think you’re not happy to be engaged!”

Absently shaking off Portia’s hand, Penelope forced down her malaise and made her way toward the refreshment table. Any ice that had been in the lemonade had long since melted, and the lemonade and punch bowls were both dry. Even the alcoholic punch had gone; there was nothing left to slake the thirst from an overly warm ballroom. More importantly, there was no Colin at the table. This in and of itself was strange, since he could regularly be found there at most balls and parties. Penelope half wondered if Eloise had enlisted Benedict and Anthony’s help to keep Colin from doing anything reckless tonight—it’s what she would have done.

“This room is a trap,” insisted her owl. “We should leave now. Find our mate, he will take us out of here.”

“We need a plan—”

“The plan is to find our mate and leave!”

Penelope blocked out her owl’s strident voice. She couldn’t disagree with the efficacy of simply finding Colin and leaving, but without a plan, they would be hunted and they would be caught again.

She knew the Bridgertons were in attendance; she had seen Kate and Anthony on the floor during the opening dance. She also thought she had caught a glimpse of Eloise and Benedict chattering as they went through the measures of another dance. She had not seen any of the other Bridgertons, but Violet, Colin, and Francesca had been included on the invitation, so Penelope would hug the wall by the refreshment table until she managed to connect with Colin.

Her plan lasted all of five minutes until one of Mowbray’s lieutenants found her and asked her to dance with a bow and a grin. She let him lead her around the floor and returned to the wall…where another officer found her and requested a dance. The pattern repeated itself several more times, and Penelope rather wistfully reflected that, had things been just a little different, she could have truly enjoyed being an officer’s wife and the camaraderie that came with being suddenly adopted into a coterie of gentlemen who were all too willing to make space for her and include her in their hijinks. She was already aware of several pranks in the works, who would never accept an invitation to parties with fireworks, and which of the young lieutenants were shirking their mathematics.

After spending all of two seasons on the wall, Penelope finally understood why other debutantes enjoyed society. She couldn’t deny the heady feeling of joy that came with being included, but she was also deeply, acutely aware of two things. First, she was only included on the premise that she was something less than her whole self. Second…the sense of Colin in her head told her that even if she had been willing to betray herself and her owl, it wasn’t an option anymore.

The more dances she danced and the less time she could make herself available to talk to Colin, the higher Penelope’s anxiety climbed. There had to be a plan, had to be a way to get her out of here. She was doing as much subtle neck craning as she dared, but she still couldn’t find Colin in the crowd or the crush of people, and there were a few dances—the one where Colonel Cole was her partner, for instance—where she did not dare.

Then Anthony Bridgerton asked her for a dance.

As she took Colin’s brother’s hand and allowed him to lead her to the floor, Penelope studied his face. He wasn’t obviously out of temper, but he clearly had something on his mind. With a confidence that rather surprised her, once the band struck up, Penelope took the initiative and quietly enquired after Colin.

“I was surprised that he was included on the invitation,” Anthony admitted. “He has behaved quite without propriety when it comes to you and Lord Mowbray. I was not sure his attendance was a good idea—particularly given how insistent he was.”

“You didn’t force him to stay away?” Penelope’s heart was in her throat.

“I admit, I would have. But my mother and Lady Bridgerton insisted that he be allowed to attend. I insisted he stay with Mother the entire time, to avoid any unpleasantness at your engagement party.”

Penelope relaxed; he was here. She was an experienced wallflower, and she could contrive a way to see him. They would have a few moments to figure out a way to get her out of here.

As if in response to her ease, Anthony seemed even more perturbed. “Penelope,” he said, slowly and carefully. “You know I consider you a sister, given your long friendship with Eloise. And for all I sometimes wish to toss Colin off a pier, he has grown into a good man. I do not truly believe that he would behave as he has without reason.” Anthony stopped speaking as they released hands to spin and trade partners. When they returned to their original partners, he still looked perturbed. “You do know that if you were in any sort of trouble, or if you were…on the verge of being pushed into a situation you did not wish to be in…you know you could come to me for help, yes?”

The stinging in Penelope’s eyes heralded tears that she did not dare allow to fall. The sense of overwhelm in her chest threatened to drown her. What was camaraderie to a family that cared about what she wanted and whether she was well? When this dance ended, she would stay on Anthony’s arm, and they would go find Colin. The Bridgerton clan could put their heads together, and she would be all right.

Too soon, the music faded to a halt. The confused looks on the faces of dancers who had been left in mid-step were quickly smoothed by Lord Mowbray’s voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me for interrupting the festivities. That you have all attended to celebrate Miss Featherington’s and my impending nuptials is an honor, and we are most grateful. Miss Featherington, may I ask you to join me?”

The crowd divided before Penelope, and she was forced to drop Anthony’s hand. Mowbray stood next to Colonel Cole at the top of the broad staircase, his hand extended to Penelope.

“If my wonderful fiancé will indulge me for a few moments,” he said with a smile. “The Colonel and I wish to briefly overtake pleasure with business, given that so many members of the Lords are with us this evening. Cole and I wish to present a new development in our duty to ensure that shifters are controlled and prevented from causing harm. After the events of the grand promenade this week, I swore I would move heaven and earth to protect Miss Featherington—and all English true humans—from the threat that shifters pose.”

As Mowbray spoke, Penelope slowly climbed the stairs to stand with him, heart dropping with each step. She hadn’t heard so much as a whisper of any new techniques for shifter hunting, and depending on what this new technique was, there were many shifters in the room right now who might be at risk. And she had told them to attend to avoid suspicion.

Taking the hand extended to her, Penelope ignored her owl’s offended hiss as she allowed Mowbray to pull her close to his side and wrap an arm around her shoulders. The spark of rage and protectiveness with an undercurrent of real fear from the sense of Colin in her mind was harder to ignore. Somehow, she kept the pleasant smile on her face as Mowbray continued speaking.

“Historically, we have been limited in fulfilling our task by having to wait for a shifter to choose to shift before they can be conscripted or executed.” Mowbray’s voice had taken on the excited tone of someone warming to their favorite topic. “This has made our investigative work, while always thorough and of the highest quality, slow to perform and challenging to prove. The time I have spent in London this season speaking to the gentlemen of Parliament and learning why they were reluctant to expand our laws has been enlightening. Gentlemen, I have heard your concerns about tangible results and the burden of proof.” His arm tightened around Penelope as he turned and nodded to another soldier standing off to the side, next to a large object covered by a dark cloth. The soldier pulled the cloth from what was revealed to be a cage.

The child inside was clearly underfed, terrified, and only prevented from crying aloud by a cruelly tight gag in his mouth. Tears ran over livid facial bruising and snot glistened below his nose. As the soldier opened the cage and reached for the child, Penelope fought a near-overwhelming urge to vomit.

This could only be the child who had been turned over the night she had fled this house. He was cowering at the back of the cage, away from the soldier, and Penelope had to drag her eyes away. He owl was screeching in fury and grief over the violence being enacted on the “hatchling,” and if Penelope wasn’t careful, she would give into the urge to shift and take beak and talons to these men. Only her sense of Colin, his terror that she would reveal herself, was keeping her from throwing caution to the wind as Mowbray spoke.

“Colonel Cole and I have worked extensively with apothecaries, cunning women, and rural grandmothers throughout England and the continent, exploring possible decoctions and medicines to force a shifter from their human form to their animal one. We have finally found the correct mix of herbs to do so, and this can be administered as a simple tea.” Mowbray pulled a silver flask from an inner jacket pocket and held it high for the room to see.

“The tea is harmless to true humans—” he unscrewed the cap and took a brief swig to prove his point— “but it has a very different effect on shifters. My hope, gentlemen, in offering you this demonstration is to finally put to rest any lingering doubts in your minds about our ability to effectively find and deal with the shifter threat here in England and convince you that expanding our anti-shifter laws is in fact economically viable. That we will not spend months or years tracking down a single suspect who may never hand us proof. That tracking down and proving shifters is now possible and greatly simplified.” He glanced to Penelope with a smile, and took one of her hands for a kiss. “That those we love will never live in fear because we have the means to protect them.”

Penelope wanted nothing more than to peel herself away from this man and run, but she was frozen. If Mowbray could prove this, it truly would be a gamechanger. Even Penelope’s owl seemed frozen, uncertain.

The older gentleman from the grand promenade stepped out of the crowd to the small clear space at the bottom of the stairwell, giving his cane a thundering rap on the floor as he looked up at the colonel and Lord Provost Marshal. “You’d best be able to back up this claim, Lord Provost Marshal,” he said, voice carrying to every corner of the room. “You already cost the treasury far too much per annum, and some of us still fail to see the need to chase shifters once they leave England. Let the rest of the world fall to chaos as long as we in England are secure and free of shifters.”

Mowbray released Penelope’s shoulders to give the man a polite, if overly formal, bow. It took all of Penelope’s willpower to stay where she was, keep smiling, and not either run for the door or take the child—who was still silently sobbing around the gag—from the soldier’s grip. Every moment the boy was in distress was slowly shredding her heart and her self-control.

“Let me put aside words, my lord,” said Mowbray, “and take a soldier’s course: action.”

It happened fast, but Penelope watched as though in slow motion as Mowbray and the soldier holding the boy stepped toward each other. Mowbray ripped the gag from the boy’s mouth, then gripped his face, forcing his mouth open. The silver flask caught the candlelight and shimmered as it tipped up and liquid splashed into the child’s mouth. The boy spluttered and choked for a moment, but in a heartbeat the soldier held a deeply confused-looking puppy in his arms.

The room was silent as everyone processed what they had just seen. The puppy’s oversized, floppy brown ears trembled, and then the pup cried. Almost immediately, the cries were drowned out by cheers and thunderous applause.

Penelope shifted.

The instinct to protect the eyes—especially when they’re under attack from several pounds of feathers, claws, and beak—is sufficiently strong in humans that not even extensive training can always overcome it. As her talons raked across the soldier’s face, he dropped the puppy to protect his eyes. Penelope let out a full-throated screech as she continued to batter the man’s face with wings and claws. However, she also flipped her head around to watch as the puppy landed on the floor and made a break for the front door, which had been thrown open in a vain attempt to alleviate the heat building in the room.

Soldiers and gentlemen alike made grabs for the pup, but the tight crowd and a well-timed “stumble” from Eloise meant that the puppy sprinted out the door, down the steps, and out of even the enhanced line of sight of Penelope’s owl.

Backwinging and gaining altitude, Penelope wheeled in the air, ready to follow the puppy out the door when a bellow—from Cole, not Mowbray—rang out, and the door slammed shut.

Unbridled fury from herself and her owl mixed with true, uncontrolled panic from Colin threatened to swamp Penelope, so she circled the room again, gaining speed, before diving for Mowbray, talons fully extended and glistening red with the blood of one of his men. She had no eyes or ears for anyone else in the room; all her anger and fear and resentment were focused on the frozen, slack-jawed man in a formal red uniform jacket who had been both bogeyman and prince charming.

Her owl had been right: they were not prey. They would not succumb to Portia, to Mowbray, or to anyone who would cheer violence done to children or anyone else simply because of how they had been born. They would sink their claws into his flesh, rip, tear, and finally say they were done hiding. Mowbray’s blond head loomed large in her vision, an easy target. He wasn’t moving to dodge or defend himself. He looked like he couldn’t move as Penelope bore down on him.

She didn’t see the red coat that enveloped her until it covered her eyes and fouled her wings, sending her crashing to the floor. She thought she hit Mowbray’s shins and bounced off him to roll across the carpet, further entangling her in the coat and entirely robbing her of her sense of where anything but the floor was.

The cacophony of bellowed orders, high-pitched screams, and thundering feet on wooden floors added to Penelope’s sense of disorientation. Colin’s panic was like a continuous scream in her head, and Penelope was suddenly worried he would do something as reckless and wholly unsalvageable as she had.

She didn’t have long to worry. Someone grabbed the coat, lifted it—and Penelope—into the air and threw it. Darkness was instant when her head hit something hard.

* * *

The instant Penelope shifted, Colin’s mind went blank, and he began to move only for his mother’s arm to leave his. Violet took her son’s face in both hands, forcing him to meet and hold her eyes.

“You cannot win this fight here and now, Colin.” Violet spoke low, beneath the crowd’s roar. She also spoke quickly, keeping her grip on his face as his eyes widened in refusal and he tried to pull away. “Survive and escape today so you can rescue her tomorrow,” ordered Violet. “We must go, Colin.” As soon as he stopped fighting her, Violet threaded her arm through Colin’s again and walked them to the doors. They were quickly joined by Anthony, who had Kate and Francesca under his arms and an expression of iron-clad neutrality on his face that promised anyone who interfered a broken nose—at minimum. The trio was followed by Benedict and Eloise, both pale with eyes jumping to look everywhere at once.

The carriage ride back to Bridgerton House was silent, except for a few terse words exchanged when the carriage jolted to a halt to avoid running down a puppy. When it cowered in sheer terror in the road rather than scamper off, Violet exited the carriage, scooped it up, and held the quivering pup in her lap for the rest of the ride home. She initially patted him gently, but a moment later, when Colin’s face went dead white and he tried to lunge for the carriage door over his brothers, she released the puppy to take her son’s hands.

Finally, the carriage pulled in front of Bridgerton house. Violet—without breaking eye contact with Colin—said, “Eloise, take the puppy to Mrs. Wilson and stay with him. Francesca, help your sister.” Once Eloise had taken the puppy, Violet led Colin into the house, up the stairs, and to the back of the house, where she pulled down the ladder to the attic and gestured him up. He hesitated for a moment, but acquiesced when his mother raised an eyebrow at him. 

The attic was far from the cramped, dirty space full of old or broken furniture and forgotten knickknacks Colin had expected. Lit by a single skylight, the attic room was furnished with a plush area rug, two settees, and what looked like a luxury dog bed—although it was too large for the Pekinese lapdogs that the queen had popularized throughout the ton—with an arched structure above it that was clearly meant to support one of the knitted blankets over the arms and backs of the settees. Small tables were also dotted about the room, and everything was in Violet’s favorite colors. It was, all things considered, a very pleasant sitting room, despite being an attic.

“This is what you and Anthony threatened us six ways from Sunday against disturbing?” Colin blurted out, face reddening.

“Of course not, that would be silly,” said Violet. “This is.” Between eyeblinks, Violet was replaced with a stately looking badger.

Colin’s eyes widened and his knees flexed. There was no chair or settee behind him, so Colin simply lowered himself to the floor, sitting crosse-legged and lowering his head into his hands, elbows braced on knees.

Violet rested back on her haunches for a moment before resuming her human form and placing a hand on her son’s knee.

After a few minutes’ silence, Colin asked, “Did you know about Pen?”

“I didn’t know until today,” said Violet. “But I suspected. I noticed that she would periodically disappear at balls, and it was often during periods Lady Whistledown would then write about. I noticed the line the author walked between offering information shifters would find useful and then immediately dismissing the information. I’ve thought for years that whoever the author is had to be a shifter. And when I started paying attention, I began to suspect Penelope.

“I believed my suspicions correct after the events of the grand promenade. Penelope was too calm, too unsurprised by poor Lord Twombley and James. She acted quickly and decisively, and…” Violet paused, taking a deep breath. “She risked much when she appealed to Lord Mowbray for mercy. Had he been less smitten with her, that could have gotten her whole family investigated.”

Colin’s head came up out of his hands. “Her sisters, her mother?”

“Lady Featherington has family in Ireland and Cornwall she can retreat to. If any of them are shifters, it will make it easier to run, not harder. Portia and her other girls were out of that room before we were, Colin. I suspect they will be all right.”

“I want to be furious that she left Pen, but…” his voice petered out, shame writ large across his face.

“Dearest, there was nothing—”

“I should have found something. I should have at least tried. I felt it when she lost consciousness, and I thought—” his throat closed. He couldn’t even say the words.

Violet pulled her son into a hug. “I should know better than to disbelieve my badger,” she murmured. “You and Penelope are fated mates, like your father and I were.” She wasn’t asking, she was stating a fact.

Pulling out of the hug, Colin searched his mother’s face. “Pen said her owl said we were, but I don’t know what that means. You always told us you and Father were a love match?”

“A fated mate is a love match,” said Violet. “And it is so much more. You seem to know that you will be able to feel Penelope’s strong emotions and extreme physical states in your mind. Your father and I found that we also communicated well and suited each other better than we could have dreamed. I have seen non-shifter love matches—Daphne and Anthony were both lucky enough to find them—but they were hard-fought battles. Your father and I faced many battles together, but finding each other was not one. That, I think, is the true magic of fated mates. You do not have to learn how to be a team; you simply are one.”

“Some teammate I am.” Colin’s voice was bitter. “I abandoned her to a man who will kill her.”

Gently but firmly, Violet took Colin’s chin in her hand and made him look at her. “Colin Bridgerton, if you truly think that being imprisoned or killed by standing next to your partner when there are other options is teamwork, then I have failed as a parent. And if you do not truly think that, then stop wasting time feeling sorry for yourself. Lord Mowbray loved Penelope, and that will buy some time, but I don’t know how much. She needs your help, dearest, and that is why you had to get out.”

Violet rose, shaking out her skirts. “I should go check on the puppy.” She held out a hand to her son. “And you have some planning to do.”

Chapter Text

Harlow Collins, the Lord Mowbray and Lord Provost Marshal, was living a nightmare. Again.

The flickering torchlight stung and strained eyes that hadn’t seen rest in early twenty-four hours and danced through the clear whiskey in a fingerprint-smudged crystal glass. Gone was the carefully constructed and polished façade of Lord Provost Marshal; it was simply Harlow who sat in grubby shirtsleeves and old, stained breeches at the roughly made wooden table in the basement that doubled as an informal prison below his London home.

Dragging a hand through tangled hair that desperately needed a wash, Harlow consciously refused to look at the unconscious owl in the cell behind him. His hand in putting her—no, it, he halfheartedly admonished himself—had been nominal, related purely to his position, his role. Colonel Cole had acted when the shifter revealed herself. Cole had ensured that any escape routes were blocked, had captured the owl in his own coat when it dived for Mowbray’s head. And when Mowbray had remained frozen, unable to think or act, Cole had dragged him out of the public eye, down to this hellish sanctuary where had tossed the owl—coat and all—into a cell and thrown the bolt home.

With the shifter secure, Cole had rounded on Harlow, rage and rebuke in his face, clearly prepared to give his protégé the dressing-down he richly deserved. Whether Cole had restrained himself because of something in Harlow’s face or the reality of a houseful of people who still had to be dealt with, Harlow still didn’t know. Cole had pivoted sharply on his heel and marched with pointed precision back up the stairs. That had been the last time Harlow had seen his mentor and superior officer.

Eventually, Harlow had shed his formal uniform—it was stilled balled up in the corner where he’d thrown it—in favor of the work clothes he left in a low cupboard in the room. He’d torn out his neat queue and poured himself a drink when the headache still pounding at his temples had permeated the numb fog enveloping him. He wished it hadn’t. Noticing his pounding head had made it inevitable that he would notice the pain in his heart.

He should be—wanted to be—furious. He’d had no trouble leveraging and focusing his rage when Jack had betrayed their squadron in Jena. He had survived the subsequent violence and ill-treatment to ultimately bring Jack to justice. That part had been easier this time. The shifter hadn’t even tried to escape, had simply flown, claws extended, at his head, so carelessly that capture had been immediate. There would be no yearlong campaign to track the owl shifter down. Her lies and deception, her flagrant breaking of laws meant to keep true humans safe and in charge of the country he had served for his entire adult life, would be punished expediently. So why was his heart fraying like an old, overused length of rope? As each fiber untwisted and snapped, he felt it, felt his control and restraint weaken alongside them.

When she woke, the owl shifter would be given the same choice as any other captured shifter: service or execution. The choice, as Harlow knew all too well, was ultimately how quickly one wished to die. Due to the nature of the missions reserved for shifters pressed into service, Harlow had more than once thought execution the kinder fate.

After the events of his aborted engagement ball, Harlow couldn’t predict what choice the owl shifter would make. The half bottle of whiskey he’d drunk was no longer holding back visions of bloody red hair and blue eyes staring lifelessly at him. Sometimes, the head bounced out of a basket—the result of a clumsy but enthusiastic headsman—and rolled to rest accusatorily at his feet. Other times, the head was still attached to a body that he discovered had been disposed of in a forgotten corner of continental wilderness. Every time his mind showed him this image, the wounds on the body told a different story. He had seen every fragile point that had been exploited to cause pain, every violence he had ever known to be inflicted on a body, and every indignity a person could suffer written on her flesh and in her blood.

In a desperate attempt to hold back the onslaught of images and the resulting involuntary shudders, Harlow drained the glass in his hand. The burn of the whiskey neither halted the creativity of his mind’s eye nor slowed the fraying of his heart.

He was going to have to look at her eventually.  

But he’d been a soldier long enough to be intimately familiar with taking time—even if only a breath or two on a battlefield’s aftermath—to brace for a sight that would forever change the fabric of one’s world. This might have been easier if Cole had thrown the owl shifter’s head against the cage bars hard enough to kill her. Now…now her was going to have to make choices and take action and face the reality that once again, someone he loved had lied to and betrayed him. To add insult to injury, the owl shifter had also stolen from him. Nothing so petty as money or position, no. She had stolen a dream he had never imagined he’d be worthy of. She had stolen his fledgling hopes.

For the first time in his adult life, he had allowed himself to imagine walking through life with a partner. Little strawberry-blonde heads bobbing through gardens, playing chase with him and each other. A vibrant, social household headed up by a beautiful, graceful matron. Peace. Happiness. A life filled with more than war and politics.

It had been within his grasp…except that it never truly had been.

The sounds of a door thudding open and authoritative footsteps on the staircase should have startled Harlow into standing—people were not supposed to just barge into this space. All he did was sigh and refill his glass as Colonel Cole emerged into the torchlight.

The older man assessed the room at a glance, one eyebrow lifting. “Pull yourself together, Harlow.” Cole’s tone was mild, his stance neutral. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but this is a boon to our mission. You know how rare it is for us to catch female shifters. Now we can keep another one from breeding, take a larger step toward the complete eradication of shifters.” He placed a gentle hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You won’t have been tricked into getting abominations on her.”

Harlow drained his glass again and reached for the bottle.

Cole snatched it off the table, holding it out of Mowbray’s reach. “That is the absolute limit,” he said. “I have spent hours doing my level best to salvage your reputation, position, and career with the Crown. Thank God the prince regent only knows that you brought Jack to justice; otherwise, you’d be out on your ear right now. You’re too good at what you do to be summarily dismissed because a shifter played harlot. Lord knows, it’s a truly inhuman bastard whose head can’t be turned by a smile and a plump rear end.”

Was that truly all it had been? Harlow wondered. Had he deceived himself into thinking that she was anything more than just another woman? He had so wanted her to be special, to be different from the shallow, vacuous debutantes that flitted pointlessly around the court until their parents or husbands dragged them off to an estate somewhere to spinsterhood or motherhood. Had he wanted her to be different so badly that he had deceived himself?

“I know we’d ordinarily wait for her to wake up and make her choice,” continued Cole, “but Her Majesty was properly furious about the whole thing and decreed that one public spectacle could only be resolved by another and that the owl shifter was to be immediately publicly executed.”

That had Harlow on his feet. “Surely she cannot be serious,” he exclaimed.

“She surely was,” shrugged Cole. “Thankfully, she has always been relatively amenable to logic for a woman. I talked her into relenting sufficiently that we can still frame shifters’ fates as a choice. Once I reminded her how many of the child shifters among the commoners are turned in by their own parents these days, she relented…somewhat.”

Despite it having been several generations since the shifter’s choice had been made law, the common folk at large had yet to forget the truly stratospheric numbers of infanticides and the alarmingly high numbers of murdered and suicided pregnant women in London particularly, but in England generally. People either did not want to risk having a shifter child and their chosen abortifacient had failed them, or they genuinely believed that killing a child themselves was more merciful than handing it off to the Crown to be killed. Husbands with any doubt in the parentage or potential shifter ability of their children were known to push their wives down stairs…or worse. It had become such a widespread phenomenon that there had been a labor shortage across England. Hence, the monarch and Lord Provost Marshal of the time had instituted the shifter’s choice.

Parents and individuals could choose to serve the crown instead of dying, and particularly for destitute families where the mother was a soft touch, there was a preference to lie to oneself and believe that a life of service was at least a life, and a better one that starving in a family that couldn’t feed another mouth. It even occasionally brought an older shifter who truly believed in the Crown or in duty out of the woodwork, which made it easier to send them on the most dangerous missions—they didn’t fight their orders. The shifter’s choice had effectively reduced the rates of infanticide, murder, and suicide, but it had also made it easier for shifters to hide, if they chose. This was particularly true among the families of the ton—money made everything easier. Although the owl shifter hadn’t needed money to hide so well that she could attempt to trap Harlow into marriage.

Harlowe wanted to pace, to physically work to avoid the conflicted dread eating a hole in his guts. But if he paced, he’d have to turn, and that meant looking at her. He still wasn’t ready for that, so he dragged his brain to face forward and think.

“Her Majesty would still want some sort of public event,” Mowbray said slowly. “She would not want to be seen as weak, or have anyone see us as weak. She can’t let the owl shifter make the choice, so…” Mowbray finally met Cole’s gaze directly. “She’s going to insist on a show trial, isn’t she? Under what law?”

“Treason is simple and broad enough to apply to the situation,” said Cole. “The barristers can work out the details to Her Majesty’s satisfaction. If the courts find her innocent or incompetent, she still must undergo the shifter’s choice. If she’s found guilty, well. It’s treason, so she’ll have an audience with a bonfire on the Tower Green.”

Harlow’s chest went icy, then still, as it did when a shifter forced him to put them down rather than submit to service—or at least a cleaner death. Being an undisclosed shifter had yet to be included in the Treason Act 1351 (despite multiple attempts by various Provosts Marshal over the years), so death was hanging rather than being drawn, quartered and hanged for men or drawn and burned for women. Harlow had always thought that was cleaner than whatever messy fight he found himself in, and were he given the same choice, he’d have stopped fighting. The shifters almost never did, though.

With a silent sigh, Harlow forced his mind to stop distracting itself. He was no stranger to moments of decision, and he knew they often failed to occur at logical times. And this was a decision moment for him. If he were to able to follow through with the queen’s plans, this was the moment to decide if Cole was right about…Penelope…or if he would put everything on the line and fight for what he could have had with her.

Except you couldn’t have had anything with her, a voice in his mind said. It was all layers upon layers of lies. Lies you could have seen through, if you’d paid attention and listened to your instincts when she asked for mercy for that stag shifter, or when she was so uncomfortable with those parents turning over the dog shifter.  

As had always been the case in Mowbray’s career, Cole wasn’t wrong. He had avoided accidentally siring shifters and perpetuating a bloodline that should be wiped from the earth. If he had nearly broken over the owl shifter’s lies about herself…He could only imagine the devastation of holding his firstborn son, only for it to shift in his arms. Or would it even have gotten that far? Women could be crafty, and they kept their secrets well. Would Penelope have tried to prevent a pregnancy? Worse, if she didn’t succeed in preventing one, would she…?

Mowbray shuddered. To imagine Penelope murdering his child even as she carried it inside her was beyond him, but the owl shifter doing so? That took no imagination at all. Any shifter that got herself married to him would undoubtedly be prepared to go through with such an atrocity to ensure they could undermine him, his duty, and his mission. They would almost certainly rationalize it as some kind of lesser evil. And he would have been made complicit.

Worse still, if the child she carried wasn’t a shifter, it would die because its vicious, deceitful, Eve of a mother had refused to do the sensible thing and refrain from pregnancy in the first place.

There was no recovery from these kinds of lies and these kinds of crimes. Any future the owl shifter had promised him was little more than an illusion underpinned by hideous violence. There was only one possible decision Lord Mowbray could make.

“One way or another, the queen will get her spectacle and there will be one less shifter in the world,” he said.

Clapping his protégé on the shoulder, Cole said, “Good man. Now get yourself cleaned up. You cannot look like I dragged you from the gutter before a tavern in court.”

Chapter Text

1813 – England

“The charges,” declaimed a white-wigged, black-robed barrister whom Penelope had never before seen in here life, “are high and petty treason.”

Penelope’s mouth went dry and her palms went clammy as whispers picked up and flew around the courtroom like the ominous breeze that portends a storm. She had expected the high treason; there was no denying the fact that she was, indeed, a shifter, and the legal reality was that her very existence was treason. But to have Mowbray’s wounded pride turned into something that could be litigated stung in ways she had not anticipated. She just barely avoided clasping her hands and looking down, keeping her arms by her sides and her chin level. All she had now was her composure and the dignity that came with it, and for some reason holding onto that helped bolster her courage.  

The barrister merely raised his voice to carry over the susurration of sound as he continued. “For failing to report to the Crown and make the shifter’s choice upon reaching the age of majority, for misleading and seducing an agent of the Crown for the purposes of subverting and undermining established law, and for attacking Crown officers, Penelope Featherington is charged with high treason. For violating the authority of a social superior via seduction, violence, and ultimately betrayal, Penelope Featherington is charged with petty treason. The penalty for the greater charges is, of course, to be drawn to the place of execution and then hanged by the neck until dead, according to the Treason Act of 1790.”

As the crowd’s whispers gathered strength to become shouts—some of support, some in defiance, but all in outrage—Penelope felt herself float away on a tide of attempted memory as Colin’s rage and fear all but exploded in her mind. She still wasn’t entirely sure how long she had spent in cell in Mowbray’s basement before two of his lieutenants—both of whom she had danced with at parties—had entered the room, unlocked the cell door, and physical dragged her up the stairs, out of the house, and into the back of a gaol wagon. The pain of sunlight hitting eyes too used to darkness, as well as the speed and roughness of the evacuation had Penelope too shocked to respond or fight back. There was also something surprisingly demoralizing about seeing the sheer hatred in the faces of two men she had genuinely liked that made her wilt, just a little. None of which was helped by the fact that she felt grimy and rumpled—she still wore the party dress from her aborted engagement party, and she didn’t want to think what her hair must look like, half falling from its pins and sliding around with every jolt of the wagon.

However, once the wagon doors had opened again to reveal the Old Bailey instead of Newgate Prison or, heaven forbid, the Tower Green and a ready-waiting scaffold, fear receded sufficiently for curiosity to prevent her from fighting being pulled into the building, paraded through the hallways, and finally locked into the accused’s box in the courtroom. They had at least refrained from shackling her. There was no need, with the sturdy net that stretched over rounded frames atop the accused’s box. Even if she did shift, she couldn’t go anywhere. She also noted the reinforcements that would prevent a larger shifter from bulling through the box and making a run for it. This court was accustomed to shifters.

As soon as she’d entered the courtroom, she had known Colin was there. The spike of rage and relief as he’d seen her was strong in her mind, and even her owl took some comfort in knowing he was close. She had been too afraid of tripping and not being allowed to regain her feet to look for him while she was being hustled through the room, but the moment she was left to her own devices, her eyes roved through the room. They finally found Colin in the upper gallery. He stood right at the front, white-knuckling the railing and leaning so far forward that Anthony and Benedict, who flanked him, grasped his shoulders to stop him tipping face-first over the guardrail.

“Our mate should remember that while we have wings, he does not.” Penelope’s owl’s tone lacked the bite the words implied, and Penelope nearly smiled before remembering to hold her face neutral.

By the skin of her teeth, Penelope held that neutral expression as she noticed Mowbray and Cole sitting in the Royal Box beside Prince George and Queen Charlotte. Cole’s expression was neutral, as was the prince’s, but Charlotte was visibly put out, and as for Mowbray… The cold look in his eyes reminded Penelope all too fervently of how he had looked when he slit James’s throat. Penelope was, if anything, more afraid now of the man who could have that look in his eyes as he gently told her to look away as he committed murder than she had been of either the boogeyman of her nightmares or the Prince Charming who danced with her at balls and found her mind impressive. That he had been both sides of the Prince/boogeyman dichotomy was complicated enough for Penelope to process, but the revelation of an unexpected grief in her chest was what nearly overwhelmed her.

Precisely what she was grieving wasn’t something Penelope had the time or space to parse. Instead, she stuffed it down and away, to be dealt with if there was a later. More than anything, she wanted to get to her mate, let him shelter and protect her in the circle of his arms. To simply love and be loved for a few breaths, before she had to stand again and somehow deal with Mowbray’s new technique for identifying shifters, and whatever laws he had managed to ram through Parliament while she had been locked in a cage.

The enormity of what still had to be done, what Mowbray could do with that cursed tea going forward, and her utter helplessness to change her own situation—let alone those of other shifters—was truly too much. The weight of her people being hunted to extermination was a crushing weight that threatened to drive Penelope to her knees and then slowly crush the life from her.

“Focus!” snapped her owl. “Would you worry so much about the snake’s prey that you forget where the trees are and break your neck against one of their trunks?”

Forcing her attention back to the court, it took Penelope longer than it should have to identify that a different white-wigged barrister had risen and was pointing aggressively to a page in a book spread open on the table before him as he practically yelled in the direction of the judge.

“—patently illegal! There is no reasonable interpretation of petty treason wherein death does not occur. The Treason Act of 1351 abolished that form of petty treason in which a wife—or in this case, fiancée—attempts to murder her husband, and despite Mr. Reeves’s transparent attempt to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law, violating the authority of a social superior has always been interpreted to mean murder, not subterfuge. Or are we to sentence every servant who has ever disobeyed or maliciously obeyed their master’s orders for treason? I dare say we should find all England in an uproar if this is the precedent we set! Hangmen shall be the new-money aristocracy with all the business they shall do!”

It did not escape Penelope’s notice that the queen rolled her eyes and impatiently tapped her fingers as the barrister spoke, and that Cole’s posture was that of a man watching a play with which he was familiar—knew the ending of. She swallowed hard. If Cole and the queen had a planned outcome for this trial, she certainly would not like it, but there was nothing to save watch her opponents’ faces as they sat and waited for the barristers to finish their arguments with varying degrees of visible impatience. Cole started off looking magnanimous, but quickly settled into neutral that was too practiced not to look like a cover. The queen was a thunderhead of “move this along” from minute one, and Mowbray…

Mowbray’s face was cold, but with cracks that Penelope could see after having gotten to know him. He was impatient to see where this ended, but because—

“The hunter does not know what the hunting plan is,” confirmed Penelope’s owl. That was odd, as far as Penelope was concerned. There was no reason she could think of that Mowbray would have retained his position and standing but not be included in the plans. Cole could be a crafty bastard when he chose; more than once he had joked to Penelope about being an old man in a young man’s world, but one of Mowbray’s lieutenants had quietly told her later that when he said that to the men, he would follow it up with a warning about being wary of old men in professions where men typically died young. The fear alongside the respect in his eyes had given Penelope pause, but she hadn’t really done anything with the information. She regretted that now, listening to the barristers battle back and forth over semantics and details that mattered very little in the grand scheme.

Not even the barrister ostensibly present for Penelope’s defense tried to deny that she was a shifter and had failed to either be turned in or turn herself in on her majority. Instead, his half-hearted attempt to mitigate her sentence was to treat the court to a long list of shifters who had been caught, refused to surrender themselves, and summarily murdered where they stood. This supposedly in evidence that Penelope had had a genuine fear for her dignity and her life were she to reveal herself to make the shifter’s choice, and that some level of mercy was warranted on these grounds.

By the end of the barrister’s impassioned and gratuitously detailed accounting of a butcher’s bill of her people, Penelope’s owl was keening in grief in her head, and Penelope could barely hold back tears. There was no question that she had lost any semblance of a neutral mask, features twisting to show real emotion. The only thing keeping her even a little in control was the sense of Colin in her mind. She had felt the moment when he saw her expression first slip—he was likely the only one in the room other than Mowbray who knew her well enough and had reason enough to see it. The moment he realized she was in acute emotional distress, he had bottled his own anger and feelings of helplessness and inadequacy to flood her mind with support, love, and comfort. Even as she lost the battle to keep her spine straight and her face expressionless, she had found support in Colin’s love for her, leaning into that sense as she would an embrace.

Unfortunately, the judge appeared unmoved by the argument that Penelope was little more than a delicate noblewoman who had been exposed to too many unpleasant deaths to obey the law. The prosecuting barrister wasn’t simple unmoved; he was outright derisive: “And so should we empty Newgate Prison, then, on the justification that many of the prisoners have witnessed unpleasantries? Coddle traitors because they were frightened, sir? No, sir, I say no! The law is not something to cast aside so casually, particularly when the facts are, in and of themselves, so completely and utterly damning. Is Miss Featherington a shifter? Yes. Did she fail to turn herself in and make the shifter’s choice? Yes. Did she attack an agent of the Crown, a British soldier, and her own fiancé? Yes, yes, and yes!” He turned to the judge, hands spread as though asking what possible confusion there could be about this.

“Your honor, there can be no possible defense here. There is only a string of failures to follow the law, beginning with Lord and Lady Featheringtons’ failure to turn over a shifter child, their failure to instill in that child either ethics or respect for the law, and culminating in Miss Featherington’s violent attack on a man she was to marry and treason against the crown.” He whipped back toward Penelope, an accusatory finger shaking in manufactured rage as it damned her.

“You see before you no innocent debutante who has taken a tragic misstep,” he declared. “No, this woman is the equivalent of a highly trained and experienced foreign agent who has taken direct and intentional action to undermine the authority of the Crown and make England unsafe for and hostile to true humans.”

Penelope shook. Whether with anger or grief or fear she couldn’t tell, but she hoped it wasn’t obvious to everyone in the room. If Mowbray could sit there calmly while this white-wigged blowhard spat poison, then she—with the support of her owl and Colin—would do the same. She wouldn’t offer the court the pleasure of her distress.

Like a hunter moving in for the kill, the barrister turned again, this time to face the royal box and the galleries as he delivered the final blow. “Honorable Judge, Your Majesty, your highness, my lords, I contend that treason is a just charge for crimes committed knowingly and intentionally and that implementing the ultimate punishment—death—shall bring an end to a threat to England’s very heart and soul. I charge you, by God and for King and country, to find it in your hearts to make the right choice!”

The court erupted in noise as he finished, prompting the judge to bring his gavel down aggressively more than once and raise his voice to quiet the crowd. “We shall take a recess before we hear arguments from special parties,” the judge declared. “And upon reconvening,” he said to the galleries, eyebrows bristling in irritation, “I shall expect you all to mind your behavior of I shall have onlookers ejected from my court.” Rising, the judge made to leave for his chambers, halting briefly only to casually toss a command over his shoulder to the bailiffs: “Secure the shifter.”

A quick shift in Colin’s feelings—something akin to alarm but somehow less urgent—warned Penelope a second before someone behind her lifted her off her feet. Surprise made her wriggle, but a deep growl made her think better of trying to kick. They took her out a side door, down a short hallway and through another door into a windowless, empty room with metal strips reinforcing the walls. The boards were finished so closely that not even a mouse shifter could slip between them, and there were metal plates covering the junction where floor met walls and ceiling, covering any possible chinks or cracks that mice, snake, or weasel shifters might use to make an escape. The reinforced walls meant that larger shifters would be unable to bull their way out of the room.

Unceremoniously dropping Penelope on the floor on the far side of the room, the bailiffs took up positions on either side of the door that looked like a rough slab of iron on hideously overengineered hinges—there was no breaking down that door. They stood with their hands on weighted batons at their sides, and the glint in the older bailiff’s eyes suggested that he’d take any excuse to use it.

“I am tired of cages.” Penelope’s owl could not growl, but if she could, the words would have been. Penelope wholeheartedly agreed as she climbed to her feet and stood somewhat awkwardly, finger fidgeting, as she faced the bailiffs. Purely from curiosity, she shifted, watching to see what they would do.

The younger bailiff cursed as she startled, pulling his baton and holding it defensively between himself and Penelope. The older man’s right hand never left the handle of his baton, but his left was on his compatriot’s shoulder before the younger man’s baton was fully up.

“Why would she do that?” yelped the younger man. “Shifting’s treason!”

“She’s already being tried for treason, fat head,” said the older man, eyes locked on Penelope. “Ain’t no reason to keep it secret. She’s testing us; wants to see how we react, if she can buy herself time to escape.”

“…Shouldn’t we stop her?” asked the younger man.

“Does she look like she’s going anywhere? For chrissake, think before you pull a weapon or open your mouth.”

Shifting back, Penelope addressed the older guard. “Was it Lord Mowbray or Colonel Cole who trained you?” she asked.

“Either would have taught me not to offer shifters information,” he said. “So keep your tongue behind your teeth or I’ll deprive the boys at Newgate some of their fun and cut it out.”

“Lay so much as a finger on her and I shall personally ensure that the rest of your unnaturally short life will be as miserable as it is in my power to make it,” snarled Colin, as the door behind the bailiffs creaked open.

The younger bailiff actually jumped, dropping his baton as he whirled. The older man controlled his surprise in the space of half a breath, but removed his hand from his baton as Colin shouldered roughly past him to go to Penelope.

“Wait outside,” ordered Anthony.

“We’re not meant to leave the prisoner unsupervised…” began the younger man, voice soft and uncertain. The older bailiff, who had already palmed a small but heavy purse Anthony had subtly offered, clapped a hand to the back of the younger man’s neck, hissed “shut up,” and steered them out the door, pulling it almost all the way closed. Anthony pushed it to close the final inch and leaned against the door, surveying his brother and his brother’s fated mate.

Colin’s hug had lifted Penelope clean off the floor, and tension had drained from both of them. Anthony hadn’t been sure that the tension that had settled into his brother’s jaw and shoulders when they had bribed their way into Newgate Prison in the preceding days to ensure that Penelope was treated humanely would ever dissipate. It was common knowledge that traitors—and all shifters who failed to turn themselves in were so considered under the law—were held at Newgate prior to trial. The true reality of how such prisoners were treated was less well known, but if even the mildest of rumors were true, then neither conscience nor principles would allow Anthony to leave a lady without support in such a situation. Add to that Colin’s clear distress and increasingly desperate assertions that he would tear the prison walls down with his teeth to get to Penelope, and Anthony had offered unconditional help before Colin thought to ask him for it.

They had made their way to the prison, bribed two sets of guards and the warden, only to be told that Penelope wasn’t there. Anthony had been prepared to lay down even more funds to go cell to cell through the prison to confirm it with his own eyes, but Colin’s eyes has unfocused for a long moment before he all but dragged Anthony from the wretched place.

In the privacy of their carriage, Anthony had questioned Colin’s retreat, and Colin had said that he could feel that Penelope was too far away from him to be in Newgate. Several hours of driving about London had followed before Colin grudgingly admitted that his sense of her location was too imprecise to pinpoint a building this way. The defeated slump of Colin’s shoulders and the muscle feathering in his jaw had put a knife through Anthony’s chest. Returning to Bridgerton house with no plan would have been utterly intolerable, a moral injury to both men. Rather than suggesting such a defeat, Anthony had—more from sheer desperation than any particular political acumen or plan—directed the carriage to the home of his oldest, most powerful ally in the House of Lords.

Duke Haverton was openly suspected of having married a shifter, siring a line of shifter children, and even sheltering shifters from other families. However, the Crown had, over the years, refused multiple Lord Provost Marshals permission to investigate him because of his connections—both familial and diplomatic—to monarchs on the continent and the fact that his taxes were a sizeable percentage of the Royal Treasury’s income in any given year. Duke Haverton and Viscount Edmund Bridgerton had been longtime friends, and he had been in Anthony’s life as long as the current Viscount Bridgerton could remember. Anthony had ridden his first pony and shot his first game bird on Haverton’s estates, and when his father had died, Haverton had quietly and generously offered Anthony help and support, helping the young lord step into shoes that he should have had more years to grow to fill.

So once Anthony and Colin had been admitted to and served tea in Haverton’s parlor, the story had spilled out—admittedly piecemeal and with some gaps—from Colin’s discovery that Penelope was a shifter to her capture by her erstwhile fiancé. Listening closely, Lord Haverton’s eyes had darkened with each new twist the tale took. Finally, he lifted a hand, halting Colin. “As unfortunate as the situation is,” he said, “I’m afraid there isn’t anything practicable to be done for Miss Featherington. It’s unfortunate to lose a friend—”

Colin’s empty tea cup clattering to the carpeted floor and leap to his feet had halted Haverton. Red-faced in desperation, his protestations contained no cogent, coherent arguments, but in the midst of spluttering and half-considered phrases came, “Her owl said we were fated mates. I will not—cannot—leave her to this fate!”

At the phrase “fated mates,” Lord Haverton had leaned back in his chair, one hand massaging his temple as he glared at Anthony. When he spoke, fondness was buried beneath begrudging rancor, but it was still there. “And I thought your father was endless in bring intolerably complicated problems to me,” he said. “I can offer neither promises nor assurances of the outcome of any possible strategy we employ. But I can, perhaps, offer a route of action that is less likely to get you locked up alongside the lady than some of what just came from your lips.”

What had followed was days of meetings—meetings with every lord with a seat in the Lords and every noble family with reason not to want the Crown or Lord Provost Marshal poking too closely into their private lives. At the end of each meeting, multiple letters had been written and addressed to the Crown, the head of government, and often several newspapers. In a few of those meetings, drafts of bills banning the use of Mowbray’s new tea in members of the ton were hastily penned, and sent off to solicitors and political allies.

Enough ton families had self-interested dealings that could be jeopardized by thorough and inescapable investigations into shifters that Haverton never once had to appeal to anyone’s altruism to whip the ton and the House of Lords into a frenzy. He then offered a path to ameliorating the fears he stirred up that would unleash the rage and fear of the ton on the Crown, before and during Penelope’s trial. Anthony was impressed at how neatly Haverton had sighted the target, loaded his chosen gun, and fired it.

The goal of firing a wave of resistance against the Crown was twofold. First, to rally the ton against overly invasive actions and investigations, which would both protect any shifters among them and prevent the Crown from overstepping its authority. Second, the speed and volume of the fuss Lord Haverton intended to cause would—ideally—communicate to the Crown that convicting and executing Penelope would be politically unwise, given the opposition and the mood of the ton.

Colin had yet to be convinced of the merits of this plan, since it did nothing to clear Penelope of the charges or get her out of the custody of the Crown. As Lord Haverton patiently repeated, however, as long as she was alive, other steps could be taken after to get her out of England and free of both the Crown and Mowbray. Despite Colin’s unease and disbelief, his presence had been a surprisingly invaluable asset throughout the process.

Anthony had known about Colin’s trip to the continent with a group of younger sons, but what he hadn’t known was that Colin’s defense of Atherton Swift had quietly spread in the shifter community, and parents of shifters considered Colin a safe blind eye at worst, and an ally at best. His presence in the meetings greased nearly as many wheels as Haverton’s political acumen and expert maneuvering.

Thanks to these efforts, the galleries in the courtroom had been filled with displeased noblemen standing together in a relatively rare show of solidarity and warning on the day of Penelope’s trial. Anthony had been somewhat awed by the turnout, and there had been something bordering on smug in Haverton’s face when they took their seats in the midst of the group. However, it hadn’t been until now, with Colin and Penelope reunited, that Anthony had truly felt hope that the situation could resolve in their favor. Something ephemeral in how Colin and Penelope spoke to each other and their body language struck Anthony as deeply reminiscent of his parents. 

It wasn’t until she allowed herself to relax into the warmth of Colin’s embrace that Penelope realized how much energy feeling deeply unsafe and keeping a calm countenance took. For once in her life, she willingly dropped the façade of strength, didn’t bother to hide her fatigue or the fact that she trembled. She simply sank into Colin’s arms, let him hold and comfort her, and gave herself permission to enjoy letting his presence, his arms around her, and the hand gently cradling the back of her head soothe her.

“Our mate,” cooed her owl, relaxing with Penelope.

Penelope burrowed her head into Colin’s shoulder, barely listening as he murmured a confused combination of an account of the last few days and a plan to keep her safe interspersed with declarations of love. The words themselves mattered far less than the fact that he was here and that there was nothing in her mind but relief and joy and love. This moment would end well before she wished it to, but while it lasted, Penelope would shamelessly allow herself to drown in it and sear it into her memories. She would have this moment, always; no matter what happened when Colin finally let her go.

Slowly, carefully, as if afraid she’s break without its support, the hand cradling the back of Penelope’s head drifted to cup her cheek, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. There was a searching quality to the look Colin gave Penelope as his eyes traced every line and curve of her face.

“I didn’t believe what I felt,” he said softly. “The whole time you were gone, I knew when you were angry or afraid or surprised. I know you said we could do that, but…without you there, I doubted what I felt. I didn’t want those things to be what you were feeling when I was utterly powerless to fix it—to so much as hold you and offer what little comfort I could.” His arm tightened around her. “I swear, I will never let him make you feel any of that ever again.”

“Colin…” Penelope reached up to gently stroke his cheek. He captured her hand, pressing a gentle kiss to her fingers, smiling at her as if she had hung the moon. Her heart fluttered and her knees actually went weak—she hadn’t known that was even something that happened outside of romance novels. Everything in Penelope wanted to believe that he could carry out that promise.

But the side of her that had survived as a shifter in England was reasserting itself. Penelope sighed, and pressed her forehead to Colin’s chest, speaking quietly. “I know you mean that, Colin, but you cannot make such promises. Cole and Mowbray and even the queen are in that courtroom, and they are in control. I don’t know what’s going to—”

The door clanged open, revealing a winded Benedict Bridgerton. Over Anthony and Colin’s exclamations, he gasped out, “They’re resuming soon, we mustn’t be found here.”

Anthony was across the room in a second, one hand clamped on Colin’s shoulder, trying to drag him toward the door.

Releasing Penelope’s waist before he dragged her off her feet, Colin clasped her face for one last, desperate kiss before his brothers pulled him from the room.

Penelope was left feeling bereft, tears filling her eyes. But she couldn’t afford to let them fall. She would shortly have to face the courtroom again.

Chapter Text

1813 – England

The wood of the gallery railing creaked so loudly under Colin’s grip as the judge gaveled the court back into session that Benedict jammed an elbow into his ribs. Colin couldn’t help the desperation of his grip; he didn’t know where his attention should be. Should it be on his Pen, standing bravely and calmly in the accused’s box? On the sense of her in his head that gave the lie to her calm exterior? Or should he, as Anthony and Benedict were, focus on the hulking form of the queen’s solicitor—who looked as though he would be more at home in an underground boxing ring than a courtroom; his wig perched atop his head like a cap rather than sitting neatly around his hairline—as he stepped forward to address the court as a special party.       

That he was intervening at all was curious, Lord Haverton had mused as they resumed their seats, given that the crown was accusing Penelope of wronging. Generally, it was considered a political and legal overstep for the personal solicitor of a monarch or member of the royal family to speak against a case in which the crown was formally implicated. That the queen had done so suggested that Haverton’s plan had worked, and the queen and Cole had decided that the loss of face in a courtroom was preferable to a horde of angry Lords descending on the court and causing more havoc than a single unreported shifter.

Thinking of the queen and Cole, Colin glanced at the royal box as the queen’s solicitor theatrically came to a stop before the judge and cleared his throat. The queen still looked irritated and bored with the entire process. Cole was looking smug and deeply self-satisfied, but Mowbray had leaned forward, elbows braced on knees, eyes locked on the courtroom floor. Apparently, the Lord Provost Marshal was not privy to the entirety of Cole’s—and the queen’s, presumably, since it was her personal solicitor offering unexpectedly graceful, if excessively formal, bows to both the royal box and the judge—battle plans.

“Honorable judge,” began the queen’s solicitor. “Her Majesty, Queen Charlotte has heard the voices raised in concern among the ton about Miss Featherington’s plight.”

Colin thought that there must be an art to being a solicitor in a courtroom, just as there was to being an actor. The limp-elbowed gesture the queen’s solicitor threw at Penelope somehow managed to simultaneously convey pity, disdain, and a sense that he was here to rescue Penelope—her worthiness or lack thereof notwithstanding. Despite his instant dislike of the man for not seeing the wonder that was Penelope Featherington, Colin couldn’t help but be impressed with the tightly controlled and calibrated showmanship in the gesture.

“Rather than further distress her subjects by continuing the prosecution under your illustrious jurisdiction, she entreats you to allow her to invoke, on behalf of Miss Featherington as a first-time offender, privilegium clericale.”

“I object,” cried the prosecuting barrister.

“Damn,” growled Haverton simultaneously. The room erupted in mutters, and Colin felt a spike of anxiety from Penelope.

Over the muttering and the repeated banging of gavel on the brass plate affixed to the judge’s stand, the prosecuting barrister’s face reddened as he declaimed, “Benefit of the clergy is wholly inappropriate in this case! High treason has never been a clergyable crime, and petty treason has not been clergyable since 1600. There is no legal recourse for Miss Featherington, or her Majesty on Miss Featherington’s behalf, to invoke such an archaic and highly inappropriate defense.” If he said more, he was drowned out by voices speculating and arguing, rising once again to a proper din.

“This was not the plan.” Anthony leaned over Colin to ask Haverton, in a voice pitched low to carry over the din, “What shall we do?”

“Wait and watch,” said Haverton, tightly. “And hope that I am wrong about where this is going.”

“Where—” A truly aggressive bang of the gavel and a bellow from the judge cut Colin’s question off.

“There will be silence in my courtroom or every man among you will be held in contempt and tossed into Newgate for a sennight!”

Silence reigned, disturbing after so much noise. The judge leaned back in his chair and let the silence stretch until Colin thought he’d break his back teeth, grinding them so hard together. Finally, after an agonizing wait, the judge spoke. “You were all warned. I am moving this proceeding to my chambers. Barristers, solicitors, the prisoner, and the members of the royal box may attend. The rest of you may go to the devil for all I care—go cause a ruckus in someone else’s courtroom.” The judge abruptly absquatulated via his private door to his chambers.

Colin nearly launched himself over the railing when one of the bailiffs roughly grabbed Penelope by the scruff of her neck and hustled her out the door. Even the shadow of the feeling was uncomfortable; he knew she would have bruises. Benedict and Anthony both had arms around him, and they pulled him along with the crowd as it exited the gallery. However, where most of the crowd followed the staircase down to the foyer of the Old Bailey, Haverton led the Bridgerton brothers down a side hallway to a nondescript door, all the while blatantly ignoring Colin’s abortive attempts at getting coherent questions out. Colin stopped trying as the sensation of something scratchy tightening around his wrists and a corresponding spike of fear came from his sense of Penelope in his head.

Haverton’s knock was answered by a young, harried-looking clerk in wire-rimmed spectacles. “The judge is not avail—” he began, but Haverton shoved a card into the man’s hand.

“You will deliver this immediately,” he said, holding up a gold piece. “And next time, I don’t recommend coming between a man and his beloved cousin.”

“You’re not,” said Benedict.

“A family as old as mine has connections everywhere,” Haverton replied. “It’s all about knowing when to leverage them.”

The door opened again to reveal the judge himself, still in robes and wig. “Cousin,” he said, warily.

“Cousin,” replied Haverton, a grin crossing his face.

The judge rolled his eyes to the heavens, sighed, and asked, “Can you limit to it two of you?”

“Three.”

“Fine,” snapped the judge. “But don’t think I missed that one,” he pointed aggressively at Colin, “nearly fly over the railing twice in my court. I will evict him if he makes a scene, favors owed or no.”

“Mister Bridgerton will behave himself.” Haverton directed the sentence at Anthony, who nodded, clamping a hand on the back of Colin’s neck. Benedict sighed, pulled a book from an inner jacket pocket, and found an out-of-the-way bench to sprawl across. The other three followed the judge into his chambers.

The room was not spacious, but it was comfortable. Behind the desk that was overflowing with paperwork and open books and the extremely plush armchair was a window that opened to let in light and fresher air than had been in the courtroom. The floor was covered with a plush carpet that muffled footsteps and added some gentle color to the room. The walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the individual shelves of which were bowing with weathered leather-bound tomes, pamphlets, stacks of paper and vellum, and law books stamped in peeling gold gilt that enumerated cases back to the late 1300s. Dents in the carpet suggested that two chairs generally sat before the desk. These had been pulled to either side, with the queen occupying the one to the right of the desk. The one to the left of the desk held Penelope, whose wrists had been bound so tightly to the arms of her chair that her hands were turning red.

Anthony’s grip on Colin tightened when Colin shifted as though to go to her, instead pulling them both into position beside Haverton, who leaned against the bookshelf directly across from the desk.

Mowbray stood at parade rest with his back to the bookshelves off the Queen’s left shoulder, carefully looking anywhere but at Penelope. Prince George stood at his mother’s right shoulder, looking vaguely bored. In the cleared space before the desk, the defense and prosecutorial barristers and the queen’s solicitor were in a three-way shouting match, and Cole was circling the group, gleefully sticking his oar in wherever he felt like to increase the chaos. 

The judge shouldered silently through the argument, breaking it up with his presence and at least one subtly thrown elbow. Silence filled the room, broken only by the sounds of paper shuffling as the judge riffled through several of the law books on his desk, and pulled a few closely-written sheets of paper from a leather folder to review.

While the judge held the room in suspense, Colin’s eyes flicked back and forth between the judge and Penelope, whose hands were going redder and redder as circulation to them was cut off. Anthony’s hand felt like it was growing increasingly heavy, and the urge to throw it off and loosen the bonds grew to the point of overwhelming. The only thing that kept him in place was the certainty that he would be thrown from the room if he moved. He couldn’t help Pen if he wasn’t in the room.

Slowly, Colin became aware that someone was watching him. Reluctantly pulling his eyes away from Penelope, he turned his head and inadvertently locked eyes with Mowbray. The blond man was neatly put together and for all intents and purposes looked the part of the Lord Provost Marshal, but Colin had seen the results of enough rough nights out with younger sons to be able to recognize the slight pallor and smudges of shadow beneath bloodshot eyes to recognize that Mowbray was hungover.

No wonder he didn’t know what Cole and the queen’s plan was, though Colin, viciously. He and his cronies were out celebrating the catch of another shifter. He hasn’t looked at Pen once, let them tie her too tightly. He hasn’t any feelings for her whatsoever.

The events of the past few days had clearly also done nothing for Mowbray’s feelings toward Colin. The Lord Provost Marshal’s determinedly neutral face had cracked, and the barest hint of a snarl crossed his face as he met Colin’s furious, accusatory stare. It occurred to Colin then that he was, perhaps, lucky that Mowbray had been too deep in his cups to help Cole plan, or he might also be facing some sort of charge. But it seemed that while he and Mowbray understood the animosity betwixt them, Cole was either unaware of or uninterested in it. A slow, subtle smirk crossed Colin’s face in response to Mowbray’s snarl.

“Colin!”

It was as if he was hearing a whisper on the wind in his head, but it was there, and it was Pen’s voice, accompanied by a burst of irritation. Colin’s head whipped toward her, Anthony’s hand tightening its grip as he did.

Penelope sat quietly, calmly, but her subtly narrowed eyes and the irritation he could feel from her in his head said more clearly than words could to stop antagonizing Mowbray. She—and the others in the room—jumped as the thuds of several books hitting the floor broke the silence. Mowbray was beet red as he leaned down to scoop up the fallen books.

“He started to follow your gaze,” whispered Anthony in Colin’s ear. “And then wrenched his neck around so hard he hit the shelves behind him to avoid looking at her.”

The judge sighed loudly, and slammed one of his law books closed, pulling everyone in the room’s attention to him. “This entire case has been an unorthodox exhibition,” he growled. “Precedent has been thoroughly disrespected. Decorum thrown to the wind. It is the responsibility of every judge to balance the rule of law with the influence of the monarch—” he nodded perfunctorily to the queen and prince regent— “but that balance has, in this case, been tampered with by, insofar as I can glean, all parties.” The judge spared a moment to glare at each of the legal representatives in the room, and offered Lord Haverton a curtailed version of the same.

“As much as I wish to wash my hands of the lot of you,” the judge continued, “that would contravene procedure. However, given that all of you have bent the rules, I shall take my turn to do so. Treason is not a clergyable offense, but I admit to curiosity as to the rationale behind the attempt to invoke it. So you may have precisely one minute to explain why I should entertain such a ridiculous plea.” He waved a hand at the queen’s solicitor. “Fifty-nine seconds and counting, sir.”

The queen’s solicitor took a half step forward, all pretense of theatricality dropped as he spoke quickly and plainly. “The rationale behind invoking benefit of the clergy is because there is no denying the validity of the high treason charge. Miss Featherington is a shifter, that is fact. However, rather than punish the young lady, Her Majesty wishes to be lenient and seek restorative justice. We—along with the bishop of the ecclesiastical court—would offer Miss Featherington the opportunity to make right the petty treason charge by going through with her marriage to Lord Mowbray. This also neatly severs the Gordian Knot of her commission of high treason; he is the Lord Provost Marshal, and she would have been turned over to his custody as a shifter for execution or impressment on conviction regardless. Our solution prevents the death of a lovely young lady, offers reparations to Lord Mowbray for the petty treason, and satisfies the conditions of a conviction for high treason.” The man had the audacity to then pull out a pocket watch, check it, and finish with, “Fifty-eight seconds on the dot, I believe, your honor.”

“There is no precedent—” began the prosecuting barrister. He was silenced by a single, upraised finger from the judge, who sat back in his chair, visibly considering the solicitor’s words.

The sense of Penelope in Colin’s head was of tightly coiled panic, and it matched the feeling in his chest, which was only amplified by Haverton’s soft, but emphatic and undeniably admiring, “Bastards.”

Both Penelope and Mowbray had grown as stiff as boards with tension as the queen’s solicitor had spoken. While Colin knew little of law beyond the basics every gentleman of the ton learned to keep themselves out of trouble, he was completely certain that if both Penelope and Mowbray were concerned, then there was a valid reason to be. That they could have gone through all that work, all that heartbreak, over the past few days only for Penelope to nevertheless end up shackled to Mowbray permanently…Colin gasped, unable to breathe.

The judge turned to Charlotte, addressed her directly. “Your Majesty, it is admirable to wish to show leniency in legal situations, particularly ones as…uncompromisingly messy as this one. But I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to ensure that this is how you wish to interfere. There is a risk of setting a precedent for shifters claiming benefit of clergy when they are caught, and they cannot all be married off to the Lord Provost Marshal. The likeliest outcome I foresee is increased impressment, and as Colonel Cole and Lord Mowbray have argued in many cases, impressment where a shifter is determined to be belligerent is more dangerous to England than simply executing them. We credibly risk them defecting to other countries and sharing valuable information. I would ask you, ma’am, to reconsider this course of action.”

Charlotte smiled, something cruel behind it. “I understand your concerns, but who am I to lose a chance to repair what Lord Mowbray emphatically assured me when he asked for my permission to marry was a love match? I see no real danger of this setting a precedence; it is the exception that proves the rule.”

Colin’s heart pounded in his chest and his palms were damp. Surely, surely someone would cut this ridiculous solution off at its knees. He couldn’t be about to lose Pen so quickly and so simply.

The judge turned to the prince regent. “Your highness, are you equally in support of this rationale?”

“It is an ugly thing when a young lady is punished so drastically for what must surely be some sort of misguidance and misunderstanding,” said Prince George. “Moreover, I deal with enough women squalling when the ton is content. I won’t have my attention—or that of my Lord Provost Marshal—take up by trivialities when we are also fighting Boney on the continent. I believe Lord Mowbray is meant to decamp to the Iberian Peninsula in a matter of days, so let us end this and move on.”

A creak from the chair Penelope sat in drew Colin’s attention. She had shifted her weight, leaning forward as much as she could, eyes wide. He could hear her breathe—short, sharp inhalations that seemed to lack their paired exhales. Without his consent, his feet took him a step closer to her, before Anthony pulled him back. Colin didn’t care that the judge sent him a warning look, didn’t care that Haverton took a step to block his path. Pen was within his reach and yet she was still about to slip through his grasp. His hands curled into fists so tight his knuckles ached dully.

Turning to the knot of barristers, the judge addressed the man who was ostensibly present for Penelope’s defense, and who had been disinterestedly inspecting his fingernails for the past few moments: “Have you any objections to invoking the benefit of clergy?”

The barrister shrugged. “It’s unusual, but I suppose Miss Featherington should be grateful for a reprieve, since the alternative was likely going to be execution. I have no objections.”

Mouth puckered as though he had been sucking on a lemon wedge, the judge nodded once, sharply, and then turned back to the queen’s solicitor. “I imagine the bishop is here?” At the man’s affirming nod, the judge sighed again. “Get him in here and let’s have this business over with. My clerks will draw up the paperwork—”

“Already done,” interrupted the queen’s solicitor, bending to the floor to take a leather folder from a briefcase and placing it on the judge’s desk. “It only requires dates and signatures.”

“Surely,” interrupted Haverton, stepping forward to stand beside the queen’s solicitor. “It would be appropriate to inquire as to whether Miss Featherinton and Lord Mowbray consent to this? They are the parties who would be perfunctorily married off, after all.”

“Miss Featherington is ably represented, as is Lord Mowbray,” snapped the judge. “The court presumes that they have been consulted and their agreement obtained.”

“How many gentlemen do you know who turn so green I fear for the carpet on being told they shall be allowed to marry the love of their life?” asked Haverton. “Lord Mowbray looked as if he wished to flee the chamber when marriage was proposed.”

For just a moment, Colin’s hopes lifted. Mowbray couldn’t possibly want this marriage anymore. Now all the man had to do was be his usual, reprehensible, shifter-hating self, and they could find another way to free Pen from this bind. After all, Haverton was right. Mowbray’s calm had well and truly cracked. There was no mistaking the horror on his face as the lawyers and judge casually discussed his marriage to Penelope.

“I assure you, Lord Mowbray is in agreement with the proposition,” said Colonel Cole, voice cold. “Your Honor, why is this man allowed to interfere?”

“He’s right, Haverton,” said the judge. “You are not a party to this case, you’re not even a witness. Your presence is a courtesy, one that you are rapidly verging on taking advantage of.”

However,” he added, turning back to the Crown party, “the point is well taken. Court judgements can affect the rest of a man’s natural life, but generally speaking when they do, the man has committed a crime. Lord Mowbray is a blameless man who is about to be married off to a convicted traitor. It is only fair to ensure that this is truly his desire.”

“So his feelings about this sham of a marriage matter, but Pen’s do not?”

Colin hadn’t truly meant to speak. His fury about the blatant one-sidedness of the matter was not insignificant, but he could have held his tongue in check if that had been all he felt. The strength of Pen’s anger—laced through with something that felt alarmingly like shame—had stoked and strengthened his emotions and the words had truly just slipped from him. That they were laced with disdain and spoken in a tone so disrespectful that his mother would have banished him to the country until he remembered that he had manners did nothing to help their position, and he knew it. But the words were out, and it was too late.

“Out,” ordered the judge. “All three of you, instantly.” Haverton, knowing they were beaten, bowed his head and acquiesced without a fight.

Colin barely fought as Anthony dragged him from the room, merely dragging his heels long enough to draw out his last look at Penelope. He tried to send love to her, but he truly wasn’t sure whether she got that through the miasma of despair and shame that he had failed to keep himself under control and save her.

As the door closed before him, he thought he saw ushed tears glistening in her eyes as her jaw clenched. She didn’t break eye contact until the door slammed shut mere millimeters from Colin’s nose.

Chapter Text

England – 1813

Once the door had closed on Haverton, Anthony, and Colin, the judge did not let the silence linger. “My apologies for the disturbance,” he said to the room at large, before turning to Mowbray again. “My lord, the question remains. Do you consent to be married to Miss Featherington? I would also ask you, as the wronged party in the petty treason charge, whether you feel, as Her Majesty’s solicitor seems to, that such a marriage would ameliorate the damage done to your authority. And finally, I would ask you in your capacity as the Lord provost Marshal, and therefore as the person in the room with the most experience with an authority over traitor shifters, if you think that a marriage to the Lord Provost Marshal is the best way to remand Miss Featherington, shifter, into the custody of the Crown. I should note that this would also strip her of her chance to make the shifter’s choice, something which is precedented but somewhat archaic in today’s legal landscape.”

“We have,” Cole said, stepping smoothly between Mowbray and the judge, “already discussed the matter in depth, Your Honor. We are all in agreement.”

“Colonel, I will not sentence a man who has committed no crime if he does not wish to be. Do not give me a reason to eject you from my chambers as well.” The judge turned expectantly to Mowbray.

Who was, despite outward appearances, something of a mess.

The chaos and violence of a battlefield were where he was most comfortable, not the quiet, tense auspices of Parliament, parlors, and judges’ chambers. He had run away to the army at age ten—from a noble family, to be sure—and had been taken on first as a kind of pet to the officers. Then once his father had recognized that Harlow wasn’t coming home and his eldest son was well on his way to producing an heir and a spare (in addition to at least two bastards that the family knew of), he had insisted on purchasing Harlow a commission to get him started on something at least resembling a respectable career. Harlow couldn’t remember the last time he had visited his family, and while he remembered some of the manners his nannies had quite literally beaten into him and had all his informal etiquette training from career officers helping him along, he was nonetheless ill at ease in civilized arenas.

It was rather frowned upon to sucker punch a man in Parliament, regardless of how ill-mannered and underhanded he was being. Colonel Cole had given him a long lecture after the time he had punched a Baron as a junior lieutenant.

But more than simply being uncomfortable in his environment, Harlow was, for the first time in his life, having doubts about obeying his mentor. Being told he was still going to have to marry…her…had sparked a greater pain than any bullet—or surgeon fishing for one. To have a life one had never dreamed would be in one’s grasp was painful enough, but to then have to perform the sham of it? Harlow was a soldier, not an actor, and he still couldn’t bring himself to look too closely at her. Couldn’t even begin to untangle the vicious joy that the bailiffs had tied her too tightly to that chair so her hands were red and swollen with the instinct to untie her and comfort her through the pins and needles as feeling and circulation returned. To hand her pins to fix the curls falling out of place, and to help her out of the wrinkled mess of an engagement dress and into something comfortable.

But every kind instinct was interspersed with the memory of an explosion of feathers and the scream of a furious owl. The feeling of something nascent, delicate, and precious shattering in his hands. There could be no trust. There could be no hope. There could be nothing between them.

Colonel Cole had yet to steer him wrong, but Harlow doubted he could playact as he was being asked. And would he be expected to consummate the marriage? That thought had Harlow’s stomach roiling. He certainly could not do that. And surely he would not be expected to—who would even know he hadn’t, if they left immediately for the continent?

“My lord?” prompted the judge. “Have you an answer?”

“Give the man time to think.” The queen’s voice was barely not a snap. “The question was complex.”

“Harlow,” said Cole quietly, encouragingly.

Mowbray the soldier wanted nothing more than to retreat, regroup, and find another way to achieve the objective. He did not want to marry her. And most certainly did not want to drag her across the Channel to throw her into suicide missions until she died. Frankly, he wanted nothing to do with her. But his other option was to allow her to be executed for treason—an execution which he would have to attend, and he didn’t think he could do that either.

Damn her, too, for being so calm about all of this. She was barely even breathing hard. Had she devolved into the hysterics so common to young lady shifters, he could have slapped her into silence, dismissed her as just another traitor. She wouldn’t be special, if she’d done that. But in the face of her calm, he could not afford to go to pieces, to let a retreat become a rout.

Mowbray swallowed hard, trying to find his voice. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“Lord Mowbray?” prompted the judge.

The familiar shape of a flask was thrust into his hands. Out of pure habit, he unscrewed the cap, drank, and cleared his throat.

“A recess.” Mowbray barely recognized the voice as his own. “Five minutes.”

The judge growled audibly, but acquiesced. He rose from his chair, and stalked from the room, barristers and solicitor in tow.

“George,” declared Queen Charlotte, “I am in need of some air. Give me your arm, there’s a good boy.” They left the room, leaving Mowbray and Cole…and an apparently forgotten Penelope. Mowbray moved to brace himself on the windowsill, back to the room. It didn’t stop him from feeling her eyes boring into his back.

“What’s the problem?” Cole’s voice had lost its warmth, and held the snapping quality that reminded Mowbray of sailcloth before a storm. When Cole’s voice took on that tone, it generally meant someone was about to be raked across the coals.

“You were going to marry the chit before, and this is a simple way to both manage a dangerous shifter and appease the Crown. There is no downside here, and your hesitation is damaging both of our careers. I taught you better than this. Now fall in!” The last two words were delivered in the tone of a parade ground order, if not the volume of one.

There was a creak to Mowbray’s left, indicating a shift in her weight on the chair. Had she flinched at Cole’s tone? Or would he see, were he to look, that tilt of her head that meant she was watching and analyzing the situation? He very nearly turned his head, but something twisted painfully in his chest, and he kept his eyes on the street out of the window.

“Colonel, you have been a trusted mentor for my entire adult life.” Mowbray’s tone was respectful, his words polite. “Surely I am owed enough good will to ask what, precisely, you expect of me here?”

“Come now, man, my expectations cannot be so opaque. This marriage is a legal fiction that buys us the favor of the Crown and the political goodwill to continue to tighten the laws that allow us to find and eventually eradicate shifters.”

The indrawn breath from Mowbray’s left wasn’t quite a gasp, but it was the most reaction she had made to anything today. Mowbray would bet it was because she was realizing—as he was—that for Cole to speak this freely before her meant that he intended for her to die. And soon.

“You needn’t treat this as a real marriage,” Cole continued. “You needn’t treat it as anything but another shifter to use in the field. Now will you stop dragging your feet, acquiesce, and let us get out of here? I am just as tired of the political theatre as you are, but you must be an Anthony here. Bury Caesar, Harlow. Don’t praise him. Take a minute, if you need, but when I and the others return, I expect you to stop stalling.” Cole moved toward the door, hesitated, then clapped Mowbray on the shoulder.

“It’ll be all right, Harlow,” he said. Then he left, and the room descended into a silence so thick, Mowbray could have cut it with a knife. The thud of his own heartbeat thundered loud in Mowbray’s ears, but not loud enough to drown out the soft sound of her breathing.

“So that’s it, then?” Her voice was soft, but it seemed to overpower the room. “We shall be married just as long as it takes you to work up the courage to kill me?”

Mowbray pressed his forehead to the glass of the window. She was so calm. There was no accusation in her voice. None of the hatred shifters usually held for him. He didn’t answer. Couldn’t, around the lump in his throat, without risking unmanning himself.

“You haven’t even looked at me,” she said.

Her tone didn’t judge, but Harlow felt the stab of cowardice in his heart nevertheless. Ordinarily, that was enough to motivate him, to prove to no one but himself that he was brave and that he was capable. It had led him to success on battlefields across the continent, had allowed him to stare down petty tyrants and traitors and come away victorious. Shame was a sour bite in the back of his throat as he succumbed to cowardice this time.

“I don’t need to look at you to know you’re a traitor and a liar.”

“Existing isn’t treason,” she spat back at him.

“But you do not deny that you lied to me.” His head came up off the window. “What would you have done if we had gotten married? What would you have done if—” He didn’t finish the thought.

“Bold of you to assume I had a plan.” Her laugh was sad, edged with a self-deprecating harshness. Mowbray had the oddest desire to turn and sooth that harshness away. Instead, he clutched the windowsill until his knuckles turned white.

“Do you—” he gulped. There wasn’t time to be cowardly. Cole and the others would be back any moment. He shoved himself away from the window, facing Penelope without giving himself time to think about it.

She was still beautiful. He’d been afraid of that. Despite the wrinkled mess of her dress, the shadows beneath her eyes, and the bird’s nest that was her hair with curls frizzing out in every direction, she sat straight, eyes clear and steady. And looking as though they could see right through him, to something he couldn’t even see. He checked on her hands—they were swollen and turning a purplish red. He really ought to loosen those ropes… He had actually taken two steps towards her, hands extended, before he saw her lean away from him and he stopped.

“Do you still want to marry me?” The words tumbled from his mouth in a rush with no eloquence or finesse. Just an honest question, sparked by an ember of hope in his chest.

The shock in her face was enough to quench it thoroughly before he registered hearing her say, “No.”

*****

The door to the office thudding open and the entire party filing back in and resuming their places wasn’t enough to pull Penelope’s eyes away from Mowbray. The man’s face had crumpled and then smoothed into hideous, unbridled anger when she had told him she didn’t want to marry him. She had not expected real anger from Mowbray to be more frightening than the cold mask he had worn when capturing and murdering shifters, but she was genuinely afraid she had just gone too far. Mowbray didn’t break eye contact with her as he moved out from behind the judge’s desk, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Cole and the queen’s solicitor.

“Have you an answer, Lord Mowbray?” the judge asked without preamble.

“I have, your Honor,” Mowbray said, voice cold, steady, and confident. “I consent to the marriage, and I do believe that this ameliorates the damage done in the petty treason charge. I also, in my capacity as the Lord Provost Marshal, believe that as the prosecuting barrister argued, this is the best way for me to ensure that a very dangerous shifter with a pattern of transgressive and treasonous behavior is monitored and prevented from causing any additional harm. This shifter is too dangerous—too much a Delilah—to be allowed the traditional shifter’s choice.”

The judge’s eyebrow raised at the change in Mowbray’s countenance. “You seem confident, Lord Mowbray. You are sure of your decision?”

“I am.”

Penelope’s head whirled at how quickly things moved after that. A rheumy-eyed bishop who was ninety if he was a day was gently escorted into the room by a young priest who proceeded to prompt him through the paperwork to issue a special license for the marriage—complicated by several court orders the judge had to sign to make everything legal before signing the case over the ecclesiastical court—and then the fastest marriage ceremony in history.

At no point was Penelope’s consent asked—she never said “I do.” When the ring refused to fit onto her swollen, nerveless finger—she was not untied for the ceremony—the solution was to place it on a chain that Mowbray fastened around her neck. He managed not to touch her at all in the process, nearly garroting her with the chain to fasten it over top of any loose hair rather than pulling it to one side.

There was no first kiss. There was merely the signing of paperwork by Mowbray and the bishop. Finally, the judge placed all the requisite paperwork in a leather file folder and handed it to Mowbray. Then he dismissed the barristers, and the Prince Regent and queen left the room with their solicitor, leaving Penelope alone with the judge, Cole, and Mowbray. That seemed to be the first time Penelope had the time and space to breathe—yet she found she couldn’t.

She was married. To Lord Mowbray.

A sense of feeling trapped rose in her chest, something suffocating and despairing that hadn’t been this strong when she had literally been caged. She couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t think straight. Barely heard it when her owl screeched, “You cannot shift, you will hurt our wings!” Panic pure and simple broke over her, and she shifted by accident.

The screech that issued from her mouth was one of pain. Her wings were splayed uncomfortably, tied to the arms of a chair at an angle that nearly popped them from the joints. Her taloned claws did not quite rest on the seat of the chair, and the instinct to flap, to go from awkwardly hanging to a proper perch, simply put further strain on her wings and shoulder joints. All of which fed into the panic spiral she was already in.

“She’ll escape if you release her,” snapped Cole to Mowbray, who had drawn a small, sharp knife from his boot.

“She’s useless to us with broken wings,” the Lord Provost Marshal replied.

The next thing Penelope knew, she was winging up, so fast that she cracked her head on the ceiling and fell nearly to the floor before she recovered enough to catch herself with her wings. She landed hard, but she didn’t—quite—crash. Before she could so much as orient herself, her wings were crushed closed against her, and she was being held against Colonel Cole’s chest, a knife blade at the feathers of her throat.

“Change back.” The “or else” was implied in the keenness of the blade and the tips of a couple of feathers fluttering to the ground.

“We could just stuff it in the birdcage,” Mowbray said, as the moment stretched and Penelope still didn’t shift back.

“Surely I taught you better than that,” Cole said. “What is the most important thing to ensure with shifters?”

“Obedience,” said Mowbray, in the tone of a schoolboy who has learned an answer by rote.

“Hear that?” Cole asked Penelope. “Now change back.” He added pressure to the knife, and more feather tips fluttered to the floor.

“He is in earnest,” Penelope’s owl warned.

“Just another second,” replied Penelope, as the knife bit skin for the first time. She watched as something complicated crossed Mowbray’s face as he saw blood on her white feathers.

“Cole,” he began, only to stop as Penelope shifted back and Cole released her with a rough shove. She caught herself, and put her back to a wall, facing the men.

“Stubborn,” Cole said, evaluatingly. “Perhaps you’d best show her the consequences, Mowbray.”

There wasn’t even a split second of hesitation that Penelope could use to prepare herself; Mowbray’s backhand seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn’t hard—her mama had stuck her harder for less in the past—but it was a surprise, and surprise more than anything drove Penelope back a step, hand flying to her stinging cheek.

“If you gentlemen have quite finished,” said the judge, icily. “I will thank you to leave my chambers. I do have other business to prepare for today.”

“Of course, your Honor,” said Cole, reaching to take Penelope’s upper arm in a bruising grip. He chivvied Mowbray out the door first, then dragged Penelope through. The walk through the Old Bailey was silent, both amongst the three of them and, as Cole turned them down a series of side corridors, around them as people melted away. Out the tiny side door and into an alley, they were faced with two plain but well-made carriages. Mowbray made for the smaller one without making eye contact with Cole or Penelope.

“And where precisely do you think you’re going?” Cole’s voice was calm, dangerously so. His grip on Penelope’s arm tightened, and any half-baked hope she’d harbored of being able to shift in the open air and escape were crushed by both Cole’s grip and the fine netting carefully stretched across the Old Bailey and adjoining building two stories up. They had planned this entirely too well.

“I am leaving for the continent the day after tomorrow,” Mowbray said, painfully politely. “I have affairs that yet require ordering.”

“Including this one.” He shook Penelope for emphasis. She tried to pull out of his grip, just to see if he’d let her go, but he wrenched her arm once, in warning. “I begin to think I do need to accompany you on this campaign. You haven’t been this reticent to clean up your own messes since you were a boy of twelve, Harlow, and my patience with you now grows thin.”

Mowbray’s shoulders tightened, but he kept his back to Cole and Penelope. She had never seen him so reluctant to engage with people. He had clearly preferred soldiering to politicking while courting her, but he had faced distasteful meetings with squared shoulders and a battle plan. Surely she could not be so terrifying to him now?

The painful bite of shame rose in Penelope’s chest. She did her best to banish it, she was not ashamed of being a shifter. She was not ashamed of herself or her owl. She told herself this firmly, but it didn’t stop her chin from dropping.

“Harlow,” snapped Cole. “Take the shifter. You are well aware of my expectations. If fulfilling them means force-feeding her the tea and taking her over the Channel in a bird cage, so be it, but get it done. I won’t save your career a third time if you’re too soft to hold onto it.”

Mowbray ought to have turned and apologized to and reassured his mentor. Instead, he wrenched the carriage door open and held it there.

Cole snarled. “You may expect me to follow you in a week; sooner if I can put my affairs in the city in order quickly. If I find you have not pulled yourself together—if you’ve done something irredeemable—you know the consequences, Harlow.” He finally released Penelope’s arm, and climbed into his own carriage, but it did not immediately pull away.

“This is a test,” warned Penelope’s owl.

“For Mowbray and I both,” she agreed. She could shift now, and perhaps maneuver her way out of the alley, past the netting, to freedom. But the reality was, she was out of practice flying in anything but relatively open spaces, and the finesse required to avoid breaking her neck or her wings in the alley with all its inherent obstacles was intimidating. There was also the burning shame in her chest, and her reluctance to shift in front of Mowbray. It wasn’t that she was afraid to out herself as a shifter—that ship had well and truly sailed. It was more the combination of a lifelong habit and not wanting to see revulsion and hate in his eyes when he saw her owl form. She’d had enough of that the last few days.

“Get in.” Mowbray’s voice was low; Cole wouldn’t be able to hear it. He still refused to look directly at her.

Lacking any practical alternative, Penelope got into the carriage.

Chapter Text

Spain – 1813

A sharp shove sent Penelope through the flaps of the tent hard enough that she fell to the ground, sending up a choking cloud of dust and dead grass. Above her own coughing, Penelope heard a snort that sounded so like a derisive Prudence that she dragged her head up to check to make sure that Mowbray hadn’t somehow also kidnapped her sisters.

The sunlight diffused through the sun-bleached canvas of the tent, revealing three cots, each with a well-worn pack at the foot. Standing in the tiny space between them was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. Her curls flowed loose over her shoulders and in color matched the mousey brown, oft-turned, and patched gown that hung over a frame that was several sizes too small for it. The gown was at least ten years out of date, the waist unfashionably low. Dirty bare feet were planted firmly at shoulder width apart, and the face looking down at Penelope was deeply unimpressed. It was also marred by a scar that began somewhere in her hairline, extended through her left eyebrow, and down her left cheek. A blink showed Penelope the delicate scar on the eyelid that proved just how close the woman had come to losing the eye altogether. Her hands and forearms were also covered in old scars—only some of which were the small nicks and scratches that come from a mundane life. The jagged scar on her upper arm spoke of dangers women typically did not see. “Shifter,” said Penelope’s owl, wary. “A predator.”

On one of the cots sat a second woman who looked to be about Penelope’s age. She was dressed in little more than a shift, short stays and petticoat, and her stick-straight blonde hair was braided down her back. She idly shuffled a worn deck of cards as she crossed one leg over the other. The motion drew Penelope’s eyes to her feet, one of which was neatly stockinged and the other—the other was missing completely, with largely healed but still livid scar tissue around the lowest part of the calf. Penelope just barely caught herself in time to stop her jaw from dropping, eyes pivoting quickly to the third occupant of the tent.

The third woman—girl, really, Penelope would eat her sash if she was a day over fourteen—was also blonde, but her hair was swept up into a no-nonsense bun. She lay on her stomach on the cot, propped up on her elbows to survey Penelope. A chemise and the shoulder strap of a pair of short stays peeked out from the wildly askew neck of what was clearly a man’s shirt, and a length of rope held an old pair of breeches with patched knees (and likely rear; that wasn’t a handkerchief edge that crept around her hip) around her waist. The backs of her legs, bare below the knees and visible because her legs were up in the air with ankles neatly crossed, were covered in frighteningly regular horizontal scars—the sort that Penelope had imagined when Mowbray’s lieutenants had described the tell-tale look of an old flogging.

The story from the women’s collective scars said that they had survived Mowbray and Cole’s not-so-tender mercies for a long time. The first woman’s words confirmed it: “Another noble. Don’t get attached.” The latter seemed to be aimed at the girl in breeches, who sighed in disappointment and rolled onto her back to stare at the canvas overhead.

“I wasn’t going to,” she said, mulishly.

“You were saying just last night you were hoping the next one would be common as mud and might last.” The blonde woman missing her foot flicked a card at the girl, who caught it mid-air without looking and tucked it into her breeches’ pocket. Then she turned her head to look at Penelope.

“You better not think we’re going to be maids to you, milady,” she said, lazily extending her leg so Penelope couldn’t possibly miss the fact that it ended well before it should. “Here you’re no better than any of us, and you might well be worse.”

“At least this one isn’t crying,” observed the girl in breeches.

“She’s still on the ground, though.” The curly-haired brunette woman’s sharp tone finally goaded Penelope to her feet, where she tepidly tried to brush dirt and dead, dry grass from the front of her dress. After being imprisoned, tried, convicted, and shipped across the channel with no change of clothes, the dress was largely unsalvageable and Penelope knew that, but brushing it off gave her something to do with her hands other than wring them for the other women’s amusement.

“I’m Penelope,” she said quietly.

“And?” asked the brunette.

“Penelope Featherington?”

The woman threw her hands up and rolled her eyes.

The girl on the bunk pushed herself up to kneeling, with half a grin quirking the corner of her mouth. “I’m Hester, bat shifter. That—” she pointed to the woman missing her foot “—is Catherine, fox shifter. And that,” the pointing finger moved to the brunette, who had something approaching a fond smile on her face at the girl’s introductions, “is Josephine, Iberian lynx shifter.”

“I’m Penelope,” Pen repeated, before adding, “owl shifter.”

It was strange to claim what she was so blatantly, and to be so bluntly told what kind of shifter each woman was. On the one hand, twenty-five years of being warned and threatened about revealing herself to anyone did not simply disappear, and Penelope had to consciously avoid cringing and think about speaking loud enough to be heard, even in the confines of the tent. On the other hand, doing so validated something deep inside her. To finally say the words “owl shifter” with no chagrin, no shame, and no judgement was like cupping a wound she hadn’t even realized was festering. It released the poison and created space for healing. Tension drained out of Penelope’s shoulders, and she found it easier to meet the other women’s eyes. The mild approval she found in Josephine’s gave her the courage to ask, “How long have you all been here?”

“Long enough,” was the older woman’s reply.

“My parents stopped being able to feed eight of us when I was ten,” said Catherine. “I tried going it alone for a few years—maybe four—but when the choice came down to starving, a brothel, or this?” she shrugged. “Men were going to use me no matter what, but at least this way I have a little control and don’t have to hide my fox.” She deftly flipped a playing card between the fingers of one hand. “I learned to pick pockets on the streets, so I already had at least one relevant skill when I turned myself in.”

“Josephine thinks I was two or three when my parents turned me in,” said Hester. Her tone was nonchalant, but her eyes dared Penelope to pity her and promised that the consequences of doing so would be unpleasant. “What happened to you? Lose control over your shifting at a party? That’s usually what happens when they drag noble girls out here.”

“Why did I bother trying to teach her manners?” Josephine asked the canvas overhead.

Penelope shrugged and let the silence stretch. Self-consciousness and something like shame rose over her at the thought of telling them she had been engaged to Mowbray. They were friendly enough now, but if they imagined her a spy? She was going to need allies here if she were going to escape, and alienating these women was no way to make allies.

“Have they fed you?” Catherine finally asked. “They often forget.”

An audible growl from Penelope’s stomach answered the question more eloquently than words could.

“Two birds, one stone,” said Josephine, tossing an undyed muslin gown at Catherine, who slipped it over her head and efficiently tied the apron front. “I’m not having you going faint on us, and you can’t walk around camp in that ridiculous frippery. Let’s go visit the camp women.”

None of her reading had prepared Penelope for the realities of an army camp. Within two minutes of leaving the tent, she had grit in her teeth and a fine coat of dust over her entire body. Men in red coats and dirty white breeches stood or marched in formation, sat by tiny cookfires, or wandered seemingly aimlessly. The bustle reminded Penelope of the markets in London—everyone had a task in mind, and everyone was in somebody’s way. The noise was unfamiliar—bellowed orders mixed with shouts, friendly banter, and curses that would have curled her mama’s nose hairs. Clanging metal underpinned everything, from the high clang of cookware and tin dishes to the lower clunks of guns being disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled.

Their tent was in the center of the camp, Hester explained to Penelope as she bolstered Catherine’s bad side, letting the woman lean on her as they made their way past soldiers and officers alike. Lord Mowbray preferred to have his women shifters close by. Male shifters, Josephine explained as she pulled Penelope along by the upper arm, were assigned to specific squads and expected to act as both common soldiers and take on special missions for shifters only.

“The men don’t last long here,” she said, matter-of-factly. “If the missions don’t kill them, then usually their commanding officers do. Either they resent having shifters assigned to them and take any excuse to flog them to within an inch of their lives, or they think shifters are somehow superhuman and assign their squads the most dangerous missions.”

“Colonel Cole’s regiment is known for murdering its shifter members,” said Catherine. “The true human soldiers weren’t fond of being put in harm’s way.”

They had moved out of the main, active center of camp now, and were trekking past rows and rows of single-man tents for common soldiers. Josephine, Catherine, and Hester kept up their calm chatter, but their eyes darted about them more quickly here, watching for threats. Hester casually pulled an overlong, wickedly sharp pin from her bun and plunged it into a hand that reached from the shadowy interior of the tent to clutch at Penelope’s skirts.

She drew blood; the hand retreated.

“Bastard,” Hester said, almost cheerfully. She and Catherine hadn’t so much as broken stride.

Josephine’s arm thudded into Penelope’s chest then, forcing her back as two brawling men rolled by them, followed by a yelling cohort of soldiers. The combatants took out at least two tents before the little group of shifters moved beyond sight of the brawl.

Penelope’s breath was coming hard. The calm with which her fellow shifters faced the chaos, violence, and almost bored attempts at assault was giving her a lifeline to remain calm with, but it was a struggle. She was overwhelmed, exhausted, starving, and she missed Colin so much it was painful. More than anything, she simply wanted to go home. What she didn’t dare do was cry. Or even offer too many visible signs of distress.

The sight of a ring of tents around a communal bonfire, with women and children everywhere, was oddly comforting after the sea of men. There were wash basins set up, with women standing over them, cheerfully bantering back and forth as their hands scrubbed, wrung, and dunked. Rows of damp white shirts dried on the grass. Girls who were too young or too small to handle the basins or beat the shirts clean sat with mending in their laps and babies on their backs.

Hester helped Catherine sit with the girls before trotting off and nudging a heavily pregnant woman stirring a steaming cauldron aside with her hip. The woman offered Hester a playful swat on the shoulder and affectionate kiss on the cheek before settling on a camp stool to rest. Catherine already had a needle in her hand and was showing another girl how to hide a repair.

Josephine’s grip on Penelope’s upper arm stayed firm, and she drew Penelope past the main group of women to the outside of the ring of tents. They found a big, rawboned woman with white streaking her hair who was clearly on watch. She had a flintlock slung over her shoulder with the ease of someone who knew how to use it, and there was an alarmingly large knife sheathed at her belt. The uniformed soldiers who were clearly guarding the camp followers all had one eye on the woman even as they watched the horizon for signs of the enemy.

“I know that’s not a slouch I see in your back, Abel,” bellowed the woman in an accent Penelope had never heard before, making both Penelope and a man who was presumably Abel jump.

“No ma’am,” shouted Abel, coming to attention and throwing a crisp salute. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and was gangly with new growth that he clearly wasn’t yet accustomed to.

“Good, because I’ve been straightening up raw recruits like you since my momma followed my daddy on his march across the colonies with me clinging to her skirts. Now get that back straight and those eyes up, lad! You think the frogs are going to write you a polite note with their intent to attack?”

“No Miss Abigail, they’re going to just start shooting!” replied the soldier.

“You’re damn right they are. Anyone else feeling slouchy?” Miss Abigail cast a hard, discerning eyes over the men, who all hurriedly straightened like they were on a parade ground.

“Miss Josephine,” Miss Abigail said, in a more reasonable volume, back still to Penelope and Josephine. “What have you got for me on this lovely day?”

Within fifteen minutes, Penelope was in fresh body linens, a day dress that fit her well enough and covered her arms and chest to prevent any more sunburns, and was seated on the grass with a sausage roll and a tin cup full of strong, hot tea in her hands. Abigail and Josephine sat facing her, also with tea and food. Behind Penelope was an enthusiastic child with a comb who was carefully pulling the pins out of Penelope’s hair and working through the tangles. The little girl was quietly cooing over the color, and Penelope was happy to endure the odd pull or two given how happy being able to “help” was making the girl.

Even better was the food and the tea. Penelope ate slowly and carefully, to avoid making herself sick with her first square meal in days. Both older women nodded approvingly, as though they’d seen noble women make themselves sick before, and Penelope’s sense had raised her standing in their eyes. Slightly. From an untrained puppy to one that knew when to sit without being told.

“We are not a dog,” sniffed her owl.

They let Penelope eat to the sounds of companionable chatter—how everyone’s children and husbands were doing, the petty, mundane woes of following an army, and the quality of the last batch of soap the army had supplied them with. Miss Abigail and Josephine presided, clear allies and queens of their own little kingdoms in the middle of a world that, to Penelope, otherwise seemed entirely without order.

As she poured fresh tea into Penelope’s empty cup, Miss Abigail’s eyes sharpened, and she finally addressed Penelope directly. “How long have you been on the continent, Penelope?”

That was at least an easy opening question. “Just today,” she replied. “We arrived today.”

Miss Abigail’s eyebrows lifted nearly to her hairline as she glanced at Josephine. The younger woman looked vaguely abashed, but didn’t blush or drop her gaze.

“She didn’t storm in looking for maids,” said Josephine. “And she didn’t panic.”

“Unusual for a lady.” Abigail’s tone held surprise, but no suspicion that Penelope could detect. Not that she had given them any real reason to be suspicious. She hadn’t even—

“I noticed that you didn’t answer Hester back in the tent though,” Josephine said, turning back to Penelope. “How did you come to get caught?”

Could she simply say it was as Hester had guessed, and she shifted at a party? That was—technically—the truth, if a somewhat anemic sketch of what had happened. She badly wanted to say that and let the matter lie. The problem was, it wouldn’t close the matter, only postpone the moment she was outed. Some of the turmoil in her belly must have shown on her face, because Miss Abigail reached out to take her hand.

“Or was it that you were turned in? Your parents, or a young man? You don’t strike me as the type to panic and shift, unlike that poor girl five years or so back. What was her name, Josephine?”

“Emma? Ellie? Something like that,” said Josephine.

“Effie,” said Penelope, softly. “Her name was Euphemia. I was at her presentation when she shifted.”

“So you’ve met his lordship before,” said Miss Abigail, suspicion lighting her eyes.

Penelope had always thought she was good at controlling her face, but apparently Miss Abigail saw something in it, because she said, “You know his lordship, don’t you? More than passingly.”

“It sounds like you certainly do,” said Penelope.

“I practically raised that lad when he ran away to the army,” acknowledged Miss Abigail. “He hasn’t run a campaign without me in years. And he’s an excellent correspondent.” The last sentence was delivered with all the weight of someone giving a secret keeper a chance to come clean on their own before the speaker spilled the beans.

Heart thundering in her ears and hands sweaty around the mug of tea, Penelope’s mind went blank. She had no plan, no way out, but admitting the situation she was in and why she was in it felt overwhelming to the point of panic, and that panic blanked her usually quick mind. She could feel Josephine, Catherine, and Hester staring at her, knew it was too late to lie, even by omission. But the words wouldn’t come. Her breath grew short, and perspiration beaded on her head.

“Well now she looks like how the noble girls usually do,” said Hester, voice matter-of-fact.

“It’s Miss Featherington in London, isn’t it?” Miss Abigail’s voice was completely neutral. “You’re the young lady Lord Mowbray was planning to propose to, according to the last letter I received from him. It seems that things did not go well; care to explain yourself?”

A gulp of tea did little to remove the feeling of a mouthful of dry cotton, so Penelope stayed silent, eyes on her lap.

“Why on earth would you marry him?” Hester’s voice held no censure, just bafflement. “You’re a shifter, and he’s Lord Provost Marshal.”

“People make choices,” Catherine said, with no rancor. “But he wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“You knew he was planning to propose to someone?” The rage in Josephine’s voice was cold as steel and twice as sharp.

“And my judgement was clearly good. You told me you were over this,” replied Miss Abigail. “I’ll also note that he has very much not married anyone.”

“I didn’t want to marry him.” Penelope knew this wasn’t the smart thing to say, wouldn’t defuse the anger in the other woman, but it slipped out of her treacherous mouth without consulting her brain first.

“No, of course, it was all a game for you I’m sure,” snapped Josephine. “Were you thinking you’d marry for position and then string along a bevy of lads to make him look ineffectual? Undermine him every chance you had? Act the slut to punish him for doing his job?”

“Josephine,” began Abigail, before Penelope abruptly found her voice again.

“He kills us,” she said. “He kills shifters. The only plan I had was to try to talk him down from doing that quite so often.”

“As if he were the only one killing shifters,” scoffed Josephine. “The shifter’s choice didn’t stop the murders and the suicides. The bastard my mother married didn’t bother with choices and turning in children, he just kept accusing her of cheating and throttling the babes at birth, and it was my job to get rid—” her anguished voice cut off as she abruptly stood and walked away, hands on hips.

“It’s safer here, for us,” she called, voice hoarse. “You’d have taken that away from us.”

“Safer?” cried Penelope. “You just told me the men die here. There are only three of you, how many girls have died in front of your eyes?”

“If the girls had been smarter, they wouldn’t have died,” snarled Josephine. “It’s not his fault you noble girls are too stupid to hide or to survive if you get caught.”

Penelope was speechless. Catherine and Hester were nodding along with Josephine, and even Miss Abigail wasn’t openly disagreeing. She tried once more. “Surely you see that it’s not right to punish shifters just for existing?”

“Life is punishment for existing.” Josephine’s hands were balled into fists at her sides, her back still to the little circle of women. “One way or another, we all end up with a boot on our necks. Might as well be here, under the open sky and with friends, rather than in an alley that smells like booze and vomit and sex and that suffocates you while you live.”

Silence reigned, then. The wind whispered through the long grass, and cauldrons of laundry bubbled away, but all human sounds ceased. Until, that is, a too-skinny wolf trotted right on into camp and shifted into a too-skinny middle-aged man with a bruised face in front of Miss Abigail.

“Himself is looking for them,” he told her. “And he seems none too pleased.”

“So displeased he didn’t bother to come see me?” she asked him, pensive.

“He sends his apologies, Miss Abigail, but told me to get them back sharpish.”

Hester was already on her feet, but Catherine shifted into her fox. She could keep up more effectively on three feet than one. The teenager looked to Josephine, uncertain. “Josephine?”

The older woman stomped back to the group and took the arms of Hester and the man who had been sent to fetch them, practically dragging them back toward the center of the camp.

Abigail took the cup from Penelope and inclined her head after the little group.

“Thank you for the clothes, and the food.” Penelope’s voice was small to her own ears.

“Get along, little miss. It’s no more than we do for any of the shifters who come through this camp.” Abigail stood, making shooing motions with her hands, and Penelope followed the others back toward the big tent. Back toward Mowbray.

“I have confirmed reports that Bonaparte’s Minister of Shifter Affairs is in the area,” Mowbray said, curtly. He stood at parade rest behind a table covered in maps and other paperwork, looking over the heads of the four women on the other side. “If we can remove him from the picture, then we cripple France’s efforts to create a shifter haven and pull British shifters away from service.”

The warm, stuffy tent lit brightly with afternoon sun seemed to Penelope the entirely wrong atmosphere in which to deliver a clandestine, dangerous mission to anyone, let alone four objectively untrained women who had been pressed into service. Or perhaps three women—he was looking over all of their heads, but his head was turned to put Penelope as far to the edge of his peripheral vision as was possible.

“More broadly,” he continued, “we also reduce the ability of shifters worldwide to perpetuate themselves in friendly environments.”

If she hadn’t gotten to know Mowbray so well over the last weeks, Penelope would never have seen the subtle red flags in his cheeks as he spoke. Those flags sparked an answering wave of shame in her—that he thought her so vile that the idea of having children with her embarrassed him was not a failing in her, but it stung nonetheless.

“The mission is to discover his precise whereabouts, and then you shall be the Judiths to his Holofernes.” He pivoted on the ball of his foot, staring through the tied-open tent flap to the soldiers beyond.

Glancing to her left and right, Penelope saw incomprehension writ large on Catherine’s and Hester’s faces, and she would have put money on the neutral expression on Josephine’s face hiding a similar feeling.

“We haven’t all had the privilege of experiencing Caravaggio,” she snapped. Perhaps if her tone was sufficiently insubordinate he would finally look at her. Finally acknowledge what he had done and what he was still doing.

“I’m shocked you would reference Caravaggio before Gentileschi,” he snapped back, without turning around.

“I’m shocked you think that I was allowed to see any versions of Judith beheading Holofernes other than Botticelli and Allori.”

“And yet you seem entirely well versed in the art historical traditions of the story. I have little doubt that I would have shared Holofernes’s fate, had our wedding gone forward, so I suppose it will be no hardship for you to play Judith’s role in this mission!”

He was angry now, Penelope could hear it, but he still hadn’t turned around. Penelope opened her mouth to snipe back, but before she so much as drew breath to speak, Josephine was stepping hard on her foot and speaking.

“My lord, surely if you want this frog dead, it would be more advisable to send one of us to do it? There is a higher chance of success if we don’t leave the most important part to a flighty, useless noble girl who has never had to get her hands dirty in her life—”

Mowbray whirled, splayed hands landing on the table with a heavy thud. Everything on the tabled shuddered at the impact.

“You will keep your forked tongue behind your teeth if you cannot speak respectfully,” he thundered. “Never forget, Josephine, that you are just like them—a shifter, inherently traitorous, with no sense of loyalty or duty. That you turn on nearly every woman I bring to this camp and have never once fought me when I have sent you to kill other countries’ shifter agents only highlights this. As useful a tool as you may have been in the past, I would not have you think for a moment that I would not dispose of you if I thought you would turn on myself or England.” Taking a deep breath, Mowbray stood to attention, hands locked behind his back. His jaw worked for a moment, as though he were about to speak. Instead, he took another deep breath and began to pace back and forth on his side of the table.

“It has of late been suggested that I am too lenient with the women shifters in my regiment. I begin to see the truth of the suggestion.”

“You are generous, my lord,” said Josephine. “Let us prove our worth to you by—”

Mowbray held up a hand, and Josephine nearly swallowed her tongue to shut herself up. “There is every chance Colonel Cole will be overseeing this mission. I expect better than your best. But know this: There shall be no more loose discipline. I shall personally oversee your work, in the roles I shall assign. And any questioning of my orders will result in a flogging; is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” said Catherine, Hester, and Josephine, tones neutral and faces carefully schooled to blankness.

“I said, is that understood?”

It wasn’t the parade-ground bellow that Penelope would have expected from Mowbray in soldier mode. There was something desperate in it, something that was not ordering her, but rather begging her to fall in line.

What will you do if I fight you here and now? wondered Penelope.

“You can only push the hunter so far when he is not cornered,” said her owl. “And the hunter feels cornered now.”

“You three, out,” Mowbray growled. Catherine and Hester left immediately, leaning on each other in clear relief to be excused. Josephine wavered for a moment, clearly unwilling to leave the two of them alone, but also aware that she would catch hell if she didn’t obey. With a poisonous glare at Penelope, she finally left the tent.

Finally, finally, Mowbray faced Penelope. She had felt the intensity of his measuring looks before, so held her chin high as he took in the half-finished and hastily tied-off braid that was sitting over her shoulder—the tie barely brushed her collar bone and loose curls sprawled messily across her bosom. He glanced at the frizzed little curls around her face. Then his eyes traversed over her face itself, then down to where the borrowed dress hugged her curves more than the current ton styles did because it was a little small for her and enough out of date that the waistline was in a different place than she was accustomed to. Mowbray took all of her in, wheels turning behind his eyes.

Then she watched his eyes as they roved back to a picture-perfect curl sitting on her chest and the wheels ground to a halt. Not seeming to realize what he was doing, he reached for it. Penelope shook her hair back, sending the red cascade down her back and out of easy reach. He had lost any right to touch her when he had held her in his basement for days.

“And he is NOT—” began her owl, before Penelope viciously thought back, “Do not you dare!”

Mowbray wore a half angry, half chagrined expression, but he didn’t pull his hand back as he spoke. “Why are you fighting this? You must understand that you’re trapped. There is no need to make this more difficult for us. I always thought you practical enough to understand such things.”

“We both understand how this ends,” Penelope said, tightly, unable to articulate the particulars of the ending. “I see little purpose in making it easier for you when I will receive no such courtesy.”

“Penelope.” Sheer raw emotion without name suffused Mowbray’s voice. The hand that he had never taken back turned palm up, silently beseeching.

“Do you even know what you want from me?” she asked. “One moment you behave as if we are still courting, and the next as if you are moments from—” her throat closed. The possibility of her death at his hands felt entirely too real to casually throw in his face. She pivoted on the ball of her foot and didn’t stop walking until she was back in the tiny tent she shared with the other shifter women. A fourth cot had been crammed into the space, and Penelope silently picked up the scratchy woolen blanket on it, wrapped it over her head and shoulders, and lay down, facing the canvas wall.

Only once she had all the privacy she could claw from the situation did she feel for her sense of Colin in her head. It was faint, so faint that it was an effort to find and hold it. Like a desperate swimmer who had been drowning too long, she couldn’t hold on. Her sense of Colin slipped away, and her owl keened in her head. A silent rain of tears soaked the canvas and wool under her cheek.

Chapter Text

1813 – The English Channel and Spain

A vicious smile crossed Colin’s face as he allowed the ship’s motion to gently rock him into something resembling rest and listened to the sounds of Colonel Cole being violently ill through the bulkhead. The old goat deserved every ounce of his current misery—and worse—for what he had done to Penelope in particular and shifters in general.

Not that quite literally running into the architect of his Pen’s misery on the deck of the ship that would ferry them to the continent had been the plan. The plan, such as it was, had involved shimmying down the decorative stonework of Bridgerton house after Anthony had locked Colin in his room like a debutante who imagined herself in love and was at a real risk of running off to ruin herself. Luckily, Eloise had agreed to send an express for him before Anthony had locked him up, even if his brother had been keeping too close an eye on him for Colin to post the letter himself. He’d given Eloise a substantial bribe not to tell anyone she was posting the letter, and a second one for the mail carrier to add speed to his feet. Not five minutes after she was off, he and Anthony had started the row that had ended with Colin locked away.

It had taken both Kate and Violet to pull Anthony away and end the fight. Violet had tried to speak to Colin, but he was past reason at that point. The family had left him alone the rest of the afternoon, and after meal trays had been delivered to his room for over a day, he had still not been released. At a truly unreasonable hour of the morning, he had pulled together a bedroll and travel essentials; he wouldn’t be able to sneak his trunk out of the house. He’d have to make do with what he could carry on his back as he quietly, carefully, climbed out his bedroom window and shimmied down the decorative architecture that covered Bridgerton House. He promised himself that he would apologize to his mother for accidentally knocking the head off her favorite gargoyle, and have it restored when he and Pen made it back to London while thanking the truly inconceivable stroke of luck that had prevented anyone from hearing the stone crack and then thunder to the cobbles below.

From there, it had been startlingly simple to get himself through the city to the docks, and once the shipping offices opened—before the sun had even begun rising—book himself passage. Climbing the gangplank and stowing his belongings had been the work of moments, but he’d felt trapped in the close cabin, and the increasingly dim sense of Pen in his head was anxious making at best. He needed to pace, despite the scent of rain on the wind.

Ordinarily he’d have taken care to be in the places where he was least in the way of the crew as they made ready to depart, but Colin’s head was both too full and not full enough of Penelope. He barely saw the other men on deck. An automatic apology was on his lips when he crashed bodily into someone, but he didn’t see who he’d hit until the other man snarled, “Colin Bridgerton.”

That had jerked Colin’s attention away from the faint sense of Pen in his mind and fully to the here and now. He’d swallowed the polite apology and simply stared the older man down. Cole had met his stare without flinching or bothering to attempt to dominate. After a few moments, a sailor—who was all of twelve if he was a day–awkwardly stumbled to a stop near them, arms full of rope. The big-eyed terror in his face was what made Colin step back; the last thing he wanted was to get the lad in trouble.

Cole’s eyes tracked Colin’s eyeline, clocked the boy, and he did the math. He also stepped back to let the lad pass, with an eye roll and a muttered exhortation that sounded suspiciously like “the lad wouldn’t have survived a day in my regiment.”

That would have ended the brief engagement, except that the boatswain called to quarters in preparation to sail into a storm as rain began to fall on the deck. There was no way for Cole and Colin to retreat to neutral corners as they descended through the hatch and down the narrow hallways to their neighboring cabins.

The problem now was that Colin couldn’t assume that Mowbray would be unaware that he was coming. The moment the ship docked and Cole got his boots on the continent, he would surely warn Mowbray that Colin was coming. That more or less entirely scuppered Colin’s plan of sneaking into whatever camp he was holding Pen in and making off with her. Where they would go was a question to answer when Penelope was safely away from the Crown’s head shifter murderer—although he had half a notion they would go directly to Rome and entreat the Pope himself to annul her forced marriage. A blasphemous thought, perhaps, but Colin didn’t really see a problem with any authority that would free his…my mate, he thought firmly.

There wasn’t another word in his vocabulary that truly described what he and Pen were to each other, and with the miracle of the sense of her in his head, he was getting used to using her word for them. It was both familiar and strange, but since Cole and Mowbray had conspired to prevent Colin from being able to think of her as “my wife,” there was something precious in thinking of her as “my mate.” It was a bond that transcended the violence they had visited on Penelope, and was something Cole and Mowbray could never destabilize, bend, or break.

At least, that was what Colin told himself, even as the sense of Pen in his head faded. He spent the remainder of the voyage alternating between schadenfreude at Cole’s inability to cope with seafaring and straining to feel Pen in his mind.

Grinning at the well-dressed, happy-looking young man waiting for him on the dock, Colin descended the gangplank in Spain with a hand extended. “It’s good to see you looking well, Atherton!”

Atherton Swift took Colin’s hand and pulled him into a hug. “It’s good to see you too, Colin. Congratulations are in order, for finding your fated mate.” Something in Colin’s expression must have fallen, because Atherton clapped him on the shoulder, saying, “We’ll find her, don’t worry. Bring me up to speed and tell me the plan in the coach.”

For the first hour of travel—to where Atherton hadn’t mentioned and Colin hadn’t asked—Colin explained the situation, catching Atherton up on Mowbray courting, arresting, and then forcibly marrying Pen, as well as their own relationship. He also admitted to his plan being desperate and half-baked. “And if you’ve any suggestions, I’m open to them,” Colin finished, leaning back against the tufted backrest of the coach. He felt wrung out after recounting everything, and he acutely felt the holes and insufficiency of his plan. He had a sneaking suspicion that he had somehow already failed Pen by going off half-cocked.

Rather than directly responding, Atherton thumped the carriage roof. “We’ll take a break, stretch our legs,” he said. The coach pulled to one side of the dusty road, and Atherton led Colin off the road, through long, dry grass that was eerily reminiscent of their trip the previous year. They left earshot of the road, and Atherton kept walking.

Colin let his friend lead, waiting for him to work up the courage to say whatever it was he had to. Every one of his sisters had done this at least once in their lives, and he was, for the moment, willing to be patient, particularly if patience bought him an advantage to bring to rescuing Pen. The carriage behind them receded to the size of a toy on the far-off road.

“How do you feel about treason?” Atherton asked abruptly.

“In general, in regard to shifters, or in another particular?”

“I am confident that you don’t see simply existing as a shifter as treason at all, after our trip last year and everything you’ve told me about Miss Featherington,” said Atherton. “I mean real treason, as in an action taken in direct attack on one’s home country.”

Colin’s stomach dropped. “Atherton, have you done something? Are you tangled up in something?”

“To be a shifter in England is to have a truly muddied experience with treason.” Atherton’s back was to Colin; he was looking out over the field and toward the distant mountains. Colin could hear his admiration for the view in his voice, could hear that Atherton was allowing that admiration to cover something else.

“When your mere existence is treason, Colin, it is extremely difficult not to simply think that one has already committed the worst crime imaginable, without taking so much as a single action. It then seems a terribly small step to take an action that is unequivocally treasonous. The question of whether it is better or worse to knowingly commit a treasonous act than to be the living embodiment of treason is one that many shifters torture themselves with, particularly those who flee England and take up service with a country that is kinder to shifters. I was somewhat lucky; my mother raised my shifter siblings and I to believe that we were not crimes simply for being who we are. But it also meant that I have never been able to morally absolve myself of actions that are treasonous…no matter how simple a choice committing treason was.” Atherton finally turned back to Colin, standing with his arms loosely by his sides, chin high.

“I should have written you about my new position, that I failed to do so before you got on a ship was an act of cowardice and unfriendliness on my part. For that, you have my apologies.”

“Atherton—”

“I am the right-hand man of Bonaparte’s Minister of Shifter Affairs.”

“That’s not treason.” The words were out of Colin’s mouth before he had time to process what his friend had said. Naturally Atherton would want to make shifters’ lives better, and it was hardly treasonous to work to achieve that goal, even if England happened to be at war with France. And Spain.

“Yes, it is, Colin.”

“No, it’s entirely understandable given how you’ve been treated.”

“Just because something is understandable does not excuse it from being treason.”

“It should! I will not stand here and let you tell me you’re a traitor!”

“Colin, I am a traitor. I consciously chose to work with a government against which England has declared war during that war.”

“But it’s not right how England treats shifters!” The vehemence with which this statement exploded from Colin’s chest surprised even him.

Atherton smiled sadly. “It is not, but morality and legal treason have little to do with each other. Which is why I asked, because if we go any further, Colin, you will be knowingly committing treason as well. Are you prepared for that? The consequences for not only you but your family?”

Picturing Anthony’s apoplectic face when he heard that Colin had knowingly jumped headfirst into treason kept Colin silent for a moment too long. Atherton sighed nearly inaudibly.

“I’ll take you back to the docks and put you on a ship home. You needn’t risk your family, and I swear, I will do my best to help Miss Feathering—”

“My mother is a shifter.” Colin hadn’t moved to follow Atherton back toward the carriage. “Pen is a shifter, and you are a shifter. If the only way forward is treason, then let’s get on with it.”

“You’ll need to write to Anthony,” said Atherton. “Advance warning to get your family out of London, at the very least, and ideally England, will be useful. If you write it tonight, I will post it for you tomorrow.” Atherton clapped Colin on the shoulder, and the two started the walk back to the carriage. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

“I’ll take it even further for Pen,” said Colin.

“I have some idea of how to help you with that,” Atherton replied. “Part of my role in helping the Minister is gathering information about Cole and Mowbray and trying to draw one or the other of them out and…remove them from the picture, as it were.” Atherton glanced at Colin, watching his reaction.

Colin’s shoulders shifted, as if adjusting to the weight of the implications of Atherton’s words. “I don’t think removing two men is going to solve the problem of the body of English law that makes shifters illegal and the cultural prejudice against shifters,” he said, carefully.

“Perhaps not, but small victories are important, and we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Cole and his ilk—the men he raised and trained, like Mowbray—are trying to eradicate us, Colin. They push and push and couch their murderousness is so-called reasonable arguments, and by the time anyone who isn’t face-to-face with the consequences of their actions and policies realizes what’s happening—”

“James Langhan’s getting his throat slit in the park,” finished Colin. “And nobody protests.”

A single short, sharp nod from Atherton.

They walked in silence for a few moments, Colin turning this over in his head. He had been surprised by the amount of support Haverton had been able to drum up on a moment’s notice for Pen’s trial, and many of those gentlemen had been more measured in their responses than his experience with his own generation’s prejudices against shifters would have led him to expect. Simply ridding the world of Cole and Mowbray would not fix the wider problems—he and Pen would likely never return to England—but without them ravenously pushing an agenda…could it soften and die with time? Was the smaller step worth fighting for—and winning—so someone else could take yet another step?

 They climbed into the carriage and set forth again in silence, both young men lost in their thoughts. Colin quickly gave up composing his letter to Anthony in his head and found himself reaching for the feeling of Pen in his head again. It had grown stronger, he fancied, but it was difficult to tell. He hadn’t really had time to understand how it normally felt, and these were hardly normal circumstances.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the lack of strong sensation from the part of his mind that was now Pen. On the one hand, it could mean that she was being treated humanely and wasn’t terrified or furious. On the other hand, if she was having strong feelings and he didn’t know…Not knowing was worse, he decided, than knowing for sure she was in trouble. When he briefly said as much to Atherton, the other man snorted, saying, “She’s married to a man who is under orders to kill her. You do know she’s in danger.”

Eventually they pulled up to a large, well-kept house in the Spanish style, but with French flags on display. The house was on the edge of what was clearly a well-entrenched French military camp; there were tends in neatly regimented rows of tents behind it. The sight of those flags and tents made Colin hesitate as he followed Atherton to the front door.

“I tried to warn you,” Atherton said. “It feels a little more real when you see the flags.”

Colin’s stomach flipped over queasily, but he squared his shoulders and attempted to project confidence as he crossed the threshold and followed Atherton through the halls and into a well-lit, generously sized study.

There was a small fire in the hearth, but the main illumination was from candles in sconces all along the walls with brightly polished silver reflectors behind them. The floor was cushioned with plush rugs, which had the dual effect of making standing around the central long table more comfortable and preventing eavesdroppers from guessing who or how many people were in the room based on footfalls. Two of the walls were lined with comfortable chairs, and the final wall held windows that were shuttered rather than curtained—to prevent a spy from hiding in them? When that thought occurred to Colin, he took another look through the room, noting the distinct lack of hangings, ruffles, and closed spaces that normally exist in studies. Even a dormouse shifter like Atherton would have had a difficult time concealing himself in the room.

On the long table in the middle of the room sat papers, maps, carefully capped pots of ink, cups of quills, and several journals and books. Colin longed to go explore the paperwork, but didn’t dare; he was entirely unsure of his own status in the room, and it would be inappropriate as either guest or prisoner to start rifling through someone else’s papers.

“Where precisely are we?” he quietly asked Atherton, belatedly realizing that this was, perhaps, a question he should have asked several hours ago before agreeing to get in the carriage at all.

“Headquarters,” Atherton said. His tone was not precisely evasive, but his reluctance to clarify his answer was clear. He stood next to the hearth, despite the heat, hands clasped loosely behind his back. One eye was on Colin, and the other was on the only door in or out of the room. The tension around Atherton’s jaw gave away his nerves, and Colin’s heart sped up.

The room remained quietly tense for no more than a few moments before the door burst open to admit a short, rather round man in his late forties with round, pink cheeks and a cherubic mouth that made him look like a caricature of a painting if one didn’t notice that his enormous blue eyes were sharp and focused. Or that whatever wayward artist had painted the man had given him auburn waves as opposed to the somewhat more typical blonde curls. The whole effect was arresting on its own and was further compounded by the violently vibrant colors of his doublet, coat, and breeches.

Like a bird, thought Colin. Male birds invariably have brighter plumage than their female counterparts. With nothing else to go on, Colin was suddenly sure that the man was some kind of bird shifter.

“Ah, bonjour monsieur Swift, bienvenue! Ça va, mon amis? Ou est notre ami?” The man flitted over to enthusiastically shake Atherton’s hand and then pull him into an equally enthusiastic embrace. The sheer enthusiasm and amount of hand waving would have covered his quick once-over of Colin had Colin not been looking for it.

“Minister Jean-Pierre Deschamps, may I introduce Mister Colin Bridgerton,” said Atherton, a hand casually on the minister’s shoulder to turn him toward Colin.

Offering a polite bow, Colin said, “It is an unexpected honor to make your acquaintance, Minister Deschamps.”

“Unexpected and a pleasure, I hope, Monsieur Bridgerton,” said Deschamps, offering an equally polite bow and a handshake that was surely supposed to disguise near-unaccented English.

“Naturally,” agreed Colin with a smile that belied the unease in his gut.

“Minister,” interrupted Atherton, who looked the way Colin’s stomach felt. “I have brought Bridgerton here in the hope that we may do some good for a young shifter in addition to removing Mowbray from the equation.” Atherton quickly outlined who Penelope was and what her circumstances were for Deschamps. “I believe,” Atherton said, “that she is the new shifter we heard rumors about attending the camp here.” He pointed to a location on a map on the table.

“And precisely what is it you believe we can do for this Mademoiselle?” Deschamps stepped closer to the table, walking his fingers back and forth between various locations marked on the map. “It is a tragedy that she was caught and forced into marriage, but you know as well as I that once shifters are in one of Cole or Mowbray’s camps, it is almost impossible to retrieve them alive. Monsieur Bridgerton, do take a seat before you fall over!” This last was directed at Colin, who had felt the blood drain from his face as Deschamps spoke.

Stumbling toward a chair, Colin sat heavily. “If there is nothing you can do to help me, then I shall thank you for your hospitality and excuse myself,” he began, only to be cut off by flagrantly waving hands.
            “I am as disinclined as any man ought to be to leave the young lady in her current situation,” said Deschamps. “Monsieur Swift has not let me down yet, so we shall listen to his plan before we make any rash decisions.”

Atherton inclined his head briefly in acknowledgement. “As you know, Minister, we are baiting a trap for Mowbray. Having put about that you are in the area, and that you are to be holding a ball for officers and their wives, we have also let it be known to our double agents that the location of the ball is extremely difficult to secure, and that you have a tendency at balls to rather lose your head, imbibe to excess, and take yourself off to corners for pleasure and catnaps. Our expectation had been that Mowbray would send one of his shifters to kill you, and possibly oversee such an important mission personally, giving us the opportunity to remove a shifter agent and Mowbray himself.”

“Ah, and this is where I tell you that I can indeed help your plans!” Deschamps clapped his hands together, an excited child in his affect. He turned to Colin, face excited, but eyes calculating. “We generally expect that any shifter spies we encounter will be soldiers or women of the lower classes; noble girls rarely survive more than a day or two in those camps.”

Colin surged from his chair. “Penelope has been there longer—”

“Easy, Bridgerton,” said Atherton, holding up a hand.

“Yes, Monsieur Bridgerton, be easy,” said Deschamps. “I received word this very evening from one of my contacts that the newest shifter woman in the camp is still alive. It seems she made a good impression on the others, and they took her under their wing, so to speak, rather than leaving her to flounder. That she is nobility gives us an opportunity to both rescue her and close the trap even more tightly around Mowbray.” Deschamps turned to Atherton, a triumphant grin on his face.

“This is what we shall do. Put it about that no local servants, or any not known to my staff, shall be hired for the ball, for security reasons. I would also have you issue a general invitation to any local Spanish houses in the area.”

“And one shall go astray in the usual manner?” Atherton asked, quill in hand and scratching away on a bit of palimpsest.

“Quite. And then we shall allow their ruse to play out until—” Deschamps spun his hands around each other “—we turn the tables on them! See to it, Monsieur Swift. Monsieur Bridgerton, you shall be our guest until the plan plays out. I must go see to other matters, but I shall see you gentlemen in the morning, I am sure.” With an enthusiastic spring in his step, Deschamps decamped from the study.

Colin sat stunned for a moment, and waited until Atherton’s quill went silent before asking, “What on earth just happened?”

A small smile quirked the corners of Atherton’s mouth. “Minister Deschamps can be a right whirling dervish, but this is a good plan, Colin.”

“I’m sure it is, if you’d explain what it even is.”

“As far as we can determine, there are only four women shifters in Mowbray’s camp, three common women and Miss Featherington. Mowbray might have sent one of the three as a maid or prostitute to seduce and murder Deschamps at the ball without attending the mission in person before tonight—it’s a fairly standard ploy for spies of all stripes. But if we make it known they can’t slip someone unknown into the serving women and we won’t admit prostitutes, then we force his hand. From what you have told me, he doesn’t trust Miss Featherington—we would have assumed he wouldn’t trust her for a mission of this importance anyway, she’s too new. But now he will have little choice but to use her to get them both into the party on an invitation we shall ensure that the English will steal. He will want to be there to ensure that she carries out the mission, which gives us the chance to take him and rescue her.” Atherton stopped, looking suddenly shamefaced.

“Deschamps will have to pretend to be seduced, Colin, but I assure you, he…he has little interest in women. He will not take any liberties in earnest.”

“How long?” Colin did not care for the idea of Pen seducing Deschamps, but his primary concern was time. There was always the chance that Cole would insist on having Penelope undertake some suicide mission in the interim. “I don’t want to leave Pen there any longer than I must.”

“Preparations are already underway; the ball will take place in less than a week’s time.”

“So long?”

“Have a little faith in your Miss Featherington, Colin. She’s survived this long, and we are doing everything we can.”

“I could go retrieve her myself—”

“That’s a suicide mission and you know it.” Atherton poured two glasses of whiskey and handed one to Colin. “I won’t stop you if you insist on going, but I implore you not to.”

Colin swirled the liquid in the crystal glass for long moments, brooding. He reached for his sense of Pen in his mind. It was quiet, and somehow small, as if she were sleeping. It was wrong for her to feel that small; the Pen he loved could fill up a room with her wit alone. Decisively, he threw back his drink and walked to the map table. “Tell me how I am to help you until the ball, then,” he said.

Chapter Text

1813 – Spain

Cole’s arrival in the camp heralded a harsh change in conditions for the women shifters. Where before they had taken themselves to visit Miss Abigail daily, they were now stuck in their tent with guards on every corner. Where Miss Abigail had ensured they had eaten in her camp and had a bit of food to take back to their tent, they had clearly been forgotten by Mowbray and Cole. The first day was spent amiably enough; Catherine’s deck of cards was sufficient for a quiet afternoon of Commerce and Vingt-un among the three younger women. Josephine was still icily cordial with Penelope and refused to play. It was enough to keep Penelope distracted during the day, and she avoided thinking too hard of Colin, of focusing on the twin senses of determination and desperation that underpinned everything else she felt from him. They were not fed that day, and Penelope found that hunger simply added to the anxiety she felt and was sensing from Colin. She slept little that night.

On the second day, Hester’s stomach had growled loudly enough that Catherine had snapped at her, and both girls had shifted and gone to neutral corners. Catherine curled up in a russet ball beneath her cot at one end of the tent, and Hester hung from the ceiling of the tent’s farthest opposite corner. Josephine remained in her human form, guarding the canteens of water she had sweet-talked a young, extremely starstruck lieutenant into smuggling her. She was rationing it carefully, expertly—as if this wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last time. The slowly growing headache from hunger and minimal water was distracting enough, if Penelope allowed it to be, that her sense of Colin diminished. Then she wondered if he could feel it diminish too, and panicked a little, thinking that if he did, he might do something rash. She spent the day in silence, alternating between focusing on her sense of Colin and the headache, until the headache overtook her sense of Colin and muffled her sense of her owl. 

The third and fourth days it rained, and the canvas of their tent was quickly saturated, leaving Penelope feeling like she was breathing water on top of her aggressively pounding head, cotton-dry mouth, and growling stomach. Josephine and Catherine curled up in their shifter forms under their cots when the canvas began to drip, but Penelope and Hester’s shifter forms would have been less comfortable on ground beneath their cots than their human forms were atop them, so they watched the canteens and sat, miserably damp. There was little to do but endure at that point; even Penelope’s owl had gone silent and miserable in her head.

The patter of rain on saturated canvas and over-dry ground did nothing to muffle the sound of angry male voices from the main part of the command tent. For two straight days, they listened to Mowbray and Cole argue about something. On the fourth night, shortly after the watch called midnight, Mowbray and Cole’s voices went silent. Not long after that, a bundle of food was tossed through their tent flap. Penelope caught a flash of uniform sleeve that was too fine to be any of the junior officers, but not so fussy as to be Cole’s before the arm retreated and Hester pounced on the bundle. The food was cold, but they divided it evenly and ate it as quickly as they could without making themselves sick and then fell to sleep.

 In the pearly pre-dawn light of the fifth day, they came for Penelope. When the hand clamped down over her mouth—and her nose; the hand was almost as large as her entire face—she panicked and shifted. The sudden appearance of beak and claws might have deterred men who were unused to wrangling shifters, but her sudden reduction in size only served to make it easier for the soldier standing over her to gather her up and pin her wings.

As the soldier backed out of the tent with Penelope clasped to his chest, she looked back at her fellow shifters. Catherine and Hester were curled up in their human forms on their cots, gripping each other’s hands tightly. Josephine’s eyes glittered with an emotion that Penelope couldn’t name, but that sent shivers down her spine. The older woman was lying relaxed on her cot, as if she were going to fall right back to sleep. Somehow, Penelope didn’t think she would.

When she was finally released inside another tent, the sight of Mowbray in little more than plain breeches and a shirt prompted a startled shift from owl back to human. She landed hard on her rear in the dirt; there was no seating in this tent, merely a couple of rickety-looking tables piled with clothing and two bulging packs leaning against the canvas of the far wall.

Mowbray turned and reached a hand toward her, flinched back as if he had strayed too close to a flame, said, “Well get—” and then looked as if he’d bitten his tongue and was thoroughly disgusted with himself as the words cut off. He then had to visibly steel himself before he reached down, took both of her hands and pulled Penelope to her feet. The second she was stable, he dropped her hands like hot coals.

“We’ve a mission,” he began, before Penelope interrupted him.

“This is a terrible idea,” she declared. “You will destroy any sort of pretense you intend for us to take on the moment anyone sees us together. You don’t know how to be in the same room as me anymore, and anyone who so much as looked at you would see that you’re awkward and uncomfortable around me and start asking why.”

Mowbray’s face was crimson, and his hands were clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides. Clear warnings, but Penelope was past caring.

“I have spent three seasons watching gentlemen and debutants dance around each other in society—and no small amount of that time noticing how maids and footmen interact at the edges of balls—and never once in all that time have I seen anyone behave that awkwardly and not have the entire room gossiping about them in ten minutes flat. That is more than enough to ruin a debutante’s entire social life, and I cannot imagine the consequences would be any less dire for spies.”

“Would you shut your mouth and listen—”

“I will not,” barked Penelope.

“I told you this was a bad idea.” Cole strode into the tent, casually shoving Penelope out of his way as he squared off in front of Mowbray. “For two days I have told you. She is intransigent and shrewish and will get you killed.”

“None of the others will pass as ladies, as you also admitted,” Mowbray said, tone carefully respectful. “I can control her and complete the mission.”

“Mowbray, even from outside the tent I could see how awkward you are with her,” said Cole. “She’s not wrong that you’ll make a hash of your cover. It’s not too late to take the other shifter woman. I strongly recommend you do so.”

“Under what cover?” Mowbray asked, still painfully respectful in his tone. “The invitation we have is for the Barón and Baronesa Ortega, and the Baronesa is known for her red hair and fashionability. Penelope will be the most natural as a lady and we have no need to try to cover her hair. This is the plan most likely to succeed.”

Cole threw up his hands, exasperation and something like sorrow written on his face. “I refuse to have this argument again. If you wish to throw away your career and your life, I won’t stop you. But if this fails, Harlow, on your head be it.” He swept from the tent, but not without throwing Penelope a dirty look on his way out.

Penelope had no qualms returning the look from Cole, but when she turned back to Mowbray, she had an urge to wrap her arms around herself. He looked lost; he fidgeted with his fingers, shoulders slumped like a child who had been disciplined, and one foot actually scuffed the ground.

“Do not waste our energy feeling sorry for the hunter.” Her owl’s tone was low and deceptively soft. “He put us in a cage and see us dead.”

Penelope crossed her arms and glared at a spot on the opposite canvas wall. Her owl was, as usual, entirely correct about the situation.

A soft snort from Mowbray drew her attention back to him, and the crooked little smile he was wearing. Penelope raised an eyebrow, and he actually chuckled.

“You very much resemble your mother,” he said, by way of explanation.

“That’s possibly the most unkind thing you’ve said to me,” said Penelope as her owl squawked in protest.

Something behind Mowbray’s eyes shuttered, and he looked away. “Would that were true,” he said softly.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, Mowbray picked up a bundle of fabric from one of the tables and tossed it to Penelope. “Get changed,” he said. “We’re going to a party.”

He was decent enough to give Penelope his back while she got into a fine linen shift with padded short sleeves to hold out the gown sleeves, but as soon as she had the short stays on, he was beside her.

“I’ll lace you,” he said. “Anytime I had to do this for Josephine, she’d use a tent pole to hold onto, so go ahead.”

Penelope’s jaw dropped. “I can lace my own stays, thank you,” she snapped.

“In my experience, women can’t,” said Mowbray. “No need to make a hash of this, just let me do it.”

“No!” Penelope turned so he couldn’t reach her laces. “What on earth do you mean that Josephine needed you to lace her stays? She laces her own every morning.”

“Those are different.” Mowbray’s voice held the confidence of a man who had precisely no knowledge of the topic upon which he spoke. “She says that stays for fancy dress are impossible to do without help. She would make so much noise when getting laced into stays too, that’s why Miss Abigail suggested moving our staging grounds so far from the center of camp. Now would you stop wasting time and just let me get you laced up?”

Rather than try to explain further, Penelope simply met and held his eyes, then reached behind her and deftly laced her own stays. She pulled tighter than she typically would, partly in anticipation of a formal gown that would require her bust to be positioned higher than normal, and partly in sheer irritation. When Mowbray’s eyes dropped attentively to her chest, she considered loosening the laces but instead reached for her petticoat and pulled it over her head. When she emerged from it, Mowbray’s gaze was back above her collarbones, and he was looking flummoxed.

“Josephine always insisted that was impossible,” he said, sounding genuinely baffled.

Dropping her face into her hands, Penelope fought the urge to laugh derisively. “I suppose you did tell me in so many words,” she finally said, “that you were ill-equipped for the marriage mart.”

“I fail to see the relevance of that in this situation,” he snapped. Although Penelope couldn’t see his face, she would have won a fortune betting that it was tomato-red.

“You bloody fool, Josephine was flirting with you!” Exclaimed Penelope. “She didn’t need help; she was giving you an excuse to touch her. Intimately. And giving you every possible hint that further advances would have been welcomed.”

“But she’s a shifter—”

“So am I.”

Rather than respond, Mowbray took his own pile of clothes and exploded from the tent, leaving Penelope to finish dressing privately.

“He can’t do this,” she thought to her owl.

“No,” her owl agreed. “We are flying into a storm.”

The storm held off as Penelope and Mowbray approached the party grounds, although Mowbray had yet to unstiffen, and his arm under Penelope’s hand practically vibrated with tension. Soldiers in French uniforms ringed the party field to ensure the security of the beau monde within the perimeter. Beyond the bayonet-bearing men was a large dance floor with a respectable number of musicians seated at one end, an open tent with refreshments, and numerous little pavilions dotted about, some fully lit by the twinkling lanterns that had been hung on poles and strung on ropes, others in suggestive shadow. Women in a mix of French and Spanish fashions twirled around the floor with officers and gentlemen—the former distinguished from the latter by their uniforms—and strains of music and the low buzz of party chatter reached Penelope’s ears.

There was also, in the back of her mind, a certainty.

“Our mate is here,” cooed her owl.

Against all logic and rationality, somehow Colin was here, at this party. Painful hope blossomed in Penelope’s chest; perhaps she could see Colin again. And perhaps even contrive to escape Mowbray with him. She stumbled over her own feet at the thought.

Mowbray, tight-lipped and staring forward, caught Penelope awkwardly as she stumbled, lifting her clean off her feet and against his chest. Penelope wriggled in his hold, and he unexpectedly dropped her. She landed on her backside in the grass, air audibly exploding from her lungs. Mowbray awkwardly stood over her.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Kneel down,” she hissed, aware of the high possibility of eyes on them.

When he had knelt before her, she took both his hands in hers, and leaned her head in conspiratorially, trying to look as much like a besotted young wife as she could, under the circumstances. Her words belied the intimacy of her body language, however. “You’re going to get us caught behaving like this. You must relax.” If Mowbray got them caught before she could find Colin…she didn’t dare imagine what she would do if the chance slipped from her fingers.

“How can I relax when I must watch you seduce another man tonight?” Mowbray asked, red flags appearing in his cheeks, and not quite looking her in the face.

“I beg your very gracious pardon?” she asked, low but in a tone more suited to a sailor spewing oaths that would have peeled the tar from the deck of his ship. “I’m doing what? And you waited to tell me this until now for precisely what reason?”

“I told you that you would be the French Minister of Shifter Affairs’ Judith,” he whispered sharply.

“I thought you were speaking metaphorically!” Despite the situation, Penelope’s voice rose to a debutante’s screech.

“Why on earth would you imagine I was anything less than perfectly serious?”

“You—”

“Pardonne moi, Monseiur, Madame?” The polite interruption came from a man in French livery. “Is everything well with you?” He extended a hand to Penelope, and she allowed the man to pull her to her feet. Mowbray rose a moment later, red-faced and visibly broody. “There is grass on your dress,” he ground out.

Penelope made a show of dusting herself off, shaking out her skirts, and rearranging the train that had fallen from its place in the crook of her arm, hoping the liveried man would lose interest and leave. He did not, and Penelope eventually had to force an insipid giggle and declare herself presentable.

The liveried man bowed politely at her words, and said, “If you will follow me to the party? It would be unfortunate if anything untoward were to happen beyond the perimeter. Le Ministre has of course taken pains to ensure the safety of his guests, but as we are in an embattled country, there is, naturally, still some risk.”

“Ah yes, very kind,” muttered Mowbray perfunctorily. He tried to slip Penelope’s hand over his arm, but she wrenched her hand free and picked up her skirts. Mowbray tensed and reached for her, perhaps anticipating Penelope making a run for it. Instead of running, Penelope laid the gloved fingertips of one hand carefully on the liveried gentleman’s forearm.

“Do lead on,” she said, proceeding to ignore both men in favor of attempting to identify where in the press of bodies on and off the dance floor Colin was. The liveried gentleman left Penelope right inside the circle of soldiers. Since there was no wall on which to attach herself as a flower, Penelope instead resolutely ignored the stares of the strangers around her—let them gossip, she’d never see them again—and Mowbray awkwardly trailing her and marched—head held high, steps confident and purposeful—to the refreshment table. She didn’t spot Colin on the long walk to the table, so she snatched up a cup of punch, stepped to one side to watch the room, and gulped half the dainty crystal cup’s contents down.

The burn of alcohol nearly made her cough it back up. She kept it down, but there was no hiding her red face or her strained wheeze.

Mowbray stood in front of her, shielding her from the eyes of the crowd and holding out a small pastry. “This is not some debutante ball,” he scolded. “The punch is entirely stronger than anything you’re used to. Get ahold of yourself and eat this. You cannot seduce a man if you’re three sheets to the wind.”

“Not two minutes ago you weren’t so keen on me seducing anyone and now you’re offering advice?” Penelope raised an eyebrow, took a carefully measured sip of her drink, and did not accept the proffered pastry.

Mowbray’s ears turned red, and he snatched the glass from Penelope, slammed it down on the refreshment table, and under the scandalized looks of every lady in a ten-foot radius, dragged her to the nearest shadowy pavilion.

The settee he pushed her down onto was hard but piled high with cushions to soften it somewhat. Clasping her shoulder with one hand, he leaned down and used his other hand to carefully push aside the lapel of his jacket, revealing the handle of a slender knife. “Apparently I was unclear about the stakes of tonight,” he breathed. “So let me rectify the situation now, before you do something I cannot save you from. My orders are that the Minister dies tonight, one way or another. If you become intransigent, attempt to escape, or so much as think about warning anyone, my orders are to remove you as a problem.”

“Are you planning to follow those orders?” Penelope searched Mowbray’s face, waiting for him to speak. She didn’t think he would kill her, if it came right down to it and Cole wasn’t standing over his shoulder, but there was enough doubt in her mind to give Penelope pause. And if Cole was present when push came to shove…well. Penelope had been at the grand promenade. Had seen how cold and inhuman Mowbray’s eyes could go, and how difficult it was to bring his humanity back in such moments.

The moment stretched as Mowbray considered the question, the sound of his breathing in her ear blotting out the sounds of the party behind them. His face was schooled to a careful blankness that revealed more about his indecision than if each conflicting emotion had strutted and fretted its hour on the stage. Finally, he opened his mouth, let it hang, and closed it again.

“Worry about seducing the Minister,” he said, a hoarse edge to the words. From yet another hidden pocket in his coat—How many pockets are in that lining? Penelope wondered—he pulled a knife that was even smaller and slimmer than the one he had threatened Penelope with. He offered it to her handle first. It was sized to fit perfectly in her hand and lacked a cross guard. It looked like it would fit perfectly down behind the busk of a set of longline stays, easily accessible for someone who only needed to hide it long enough to begin an assignation before using it. She wasn’t wearing longline stays, but her short stays were cinched snugly enough—and truthfully her bust was large enough—that it would probably still stay put.

“Take it and hide it,” hissed Mowbray, when she took too long studying the dagger. “Before someone sees you with it.”

Grudgingly she did and moved to slide it down the front of her bodice between shift and stays.

“Not there!” Mowbray grabbed for either her wrist or the dagger, misjudged the distance, and more or less punched her in the breast.

Having had entirely enough, Penelope planted both her hands on his chest and shoved. Without any leverage he didn’t really budge, but he took the hint, taking half a step back and letting go of her shoulder. She could see him go red even in the near darkness.

“You don’t live long enough to become Minister of Shifter Affairs by chasing skirts incautiously.” Apology and patronization warred in Mowbray’s tone. “Your bust is the first place he’ll check for weapons.”

“Shall I just tuck it in a pocket, then? Because nobody ever noticed a knife in someone’s pocket.”

“My recommendation,” said Mowbray, voice tight and a shade too patient, “is to tuck it blade-first into the bottom of your stays. You can reach that easily enough once the gown—well. You can reach it.”

“I’m wearing a bodiced petticoat. I cannot reach my stays at this moment.” Penelope stood, hands balled into fists, her face inches from Mowbray’s. “I cannot believe I spent so many years terrified of you.” Something deeply hurt flashed across his face, chased by anger, but Penelope was past caring, and the strength of the punch had melted away some of her caution. “The queen’s shifter hunter, a figure of mythologically terrifying proportions. Yet when you come to actually execute a plan, this is the best you can do? Slapdash and ill-planned? At war with your own intentions? I had less of a plan when I fled from your London townhouse, and I came closer to succeeding than we will tonight!”

Aggressively, half wishing it was Mowbray’s flesh, Penelope shoved the knife down the front of her dress. Her expression dared him to argue, and for a moment Mowbray looked like he wanted to. Uninterested in continuing to lambast the clearly preposterous plan and utter absurdity of the situation, Penelope asked, “Which one is the Minister?”

Mowbray finally dropped his chin, breaking gazes with Penelope. He mumbled something she didn’t catch over the music.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know, precisely.”

Chapter Text

1813 – Spain

“Ladies do not stomp, Penelope!” Her mother’s voice echoed in her head as Penelope stomped twice around the perimeter of the party grounds. Whatever expression was on her face was sufficient to keep other party guests at bay as she did, head unfocused and feeling slightly floaty—the punch was strong, and she had not eaten enough since she had been forced to leave London. It certainly wasn’t helping her try to think through the situation; the only reason she hadn’t descended into panic was the sense of Colin in her head. He was close, and while he wasn’t what she would describe as unperturbed, he was focused. If he could focus, so could she.

If she wanted to scupper the mission, she now had an easy strategy: Simply avoid seducing any man there. If neither she nor Mowbray knew who the Minister was, then the mission simply could not proceed, and they could leave the party at the end of the evening. The only snag in that plan was that if Penelope left the party with Mowbray, it would mean her death. That thought had her searching faces on her second lap of the party grounds, searching for a dark chestnut head and a warm smile that would only ever be for her.

“For us,” chimed in her owl.

“Yes, for us,” Penelope agreed. The memory of the warmth in her chest as Colin had told her that her owl form was beautiful helped to ground her, and Penelope took a deep breath. The knife between her breasts pressed into her breastbone through her shift, and she hitched her shoulders, trying to ease the slight pressure.

She didn’t know what to do with the knife. Being caught with it would end poorly; there was no benign explanation for a baroness to have a bodice dagger at a party during a war, particularly when the relations between Spain and France were somewhat delicate. On the other hand, not having it if she did not fulfill the mission could be deadly. Not that she truly thought she had a chance against Mowbray or Cole. Both men were bigger and stronger than she was, and one little knife would do nothing to even the playing field. She’d be better off shifting, if it came right down to it. But how and where she would get rid of the knife quietly were not questions she had answers for, and if Mowbray caught her without it…she didn’t want to test his obedience to his orders.

Eventually Penelope came to a stop next to a post holding a lantern and wrapped her arms around herself. She had no answers, no idea where Colin was—how could he hide so effectively at a party this size?—and the night was growing chilly. Her borrowed dress was more suitable for a hot summer afternoon than an evening outdoors, and she hadn’t so much as a wrap, let alone a proper shawl or a Spencer jacket. Most of the other partygoers had gotten used to her antics and were politely pretending to ignore her as they gossiped to each other. One or two were still eyeing her sidelong, as if waiting to see what else she might do, but nobody—Mowbray included, thank goodness—seemed to want to approach her.

Except for the young man walking toward her now. He was dressed well enough, in finely made clothes, but what made him stand out was that his waistcoat and coat were cut in an English style, and from the previous year. He couldn’t have stood out more among the French- and Spanish-style menswear around him unless he’d arrived in a costume.   

Despite having already ensured that she and Mowbray would be thoroughly conspicuous, Penelope felt a fleeting sting of irritation that this young man was singling her out for even more attention. She had no desire to be used rudely at parties she hadn’t wanted to be at in the first place in two countries. With a sigh, Penelope braced herself for an uncomfortable turn about the dance floor.

The man bowed to her as he reached her, and Penelope offered him an entirely perfunctory curtsy in return. He couldn’t possibly be the minister, so offending him didn’t matter.

“Baronesa,” he greeted her, the Spanish term coming confidently, despite his accent suggesting that he spoke no other Spanish. “If you are not otherwise engaged, may I have the pleasure of escorting you for the next dance?”

She could say no, she realized. This wasn’t a season ball at home, where she risked her own and her family’s future by rudely refusing a gentleman a dance. She would likely never see this man again, his opinion mattered not at all, and he could provide her no leverage.

Clearly seeing that she was about to reject him, the young man spoke again. “My name is Atherton Swift, Baronesa, assistant to Jean-Pierre Deschamps, Minister of Shifter Affairs for Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. Forgive my forwardness on this matter, but Minister Deschamps feels it is important for his staff to offer overtures—to bridge to the ton, as it were—in the name of friendly relations. Please, may I have the next dance with you?” He half bowed, extending a hand to her.

Penelope was no spy, but knowing Atherton’s history and connection to Colin, not even she could miss the subtle hint in “bridge to the ton,” a phrase that was too clumsy and vague even for a politician intent on equivocating to use. If he knew where Colin was, could connect her with her fated mate, she’d dance the next three with him, and propriety could go hang. She didn’t quite manage a smile, but her curtsy as she took the proffered hand was genuine. “The pleasure would be entirely mine,” she said, allowing Atherton to lead her onto the floor.

The music was unfamiliar—something that seemed to mix French and Spanish influences, if Penelope was any judge—and the slight panic in Atherton’s eyes said that he didn’t know this dance any more than Penelope did. However, couples took to the floor in pairs without forming the larger groups of a country dance or even a formal English dance, so neither was forced to embarrass themselves by being a step behind as they tried to follow an unfamiliar dance. They rather quickly settled into the steps of a waltz, which put them out of sync with the rest of the floor, but gave them a familiar pattern to follow while they spoke. Atherton led and ensured that they stayed a fair distance from any other couples—close enough to the musicians that they would not be easily overheard.

“How do you come to be in the minister’s employ, Mr. Swift?” asked Penelope, genuinely curious about the fate of the shifter who had rescued Colin and the other gentlemen near Salamanca.

“That is a long story, and one best told on another day, in another place,” Atherton replied. “Forgive my forwardness, Baronesa, but I believe we have a mutual acquaintance? One who is rather fond of owls?”

“Is Col—”

“Hush,” admonished Atherton. “There are many listening ears, my lady.”

Cheeks pink, Penelope nodded. Subterfuge would have to be the order of the evening, and she would have to listen carefully and mind her tongue. “You are correct about our mutual acquaintance, although I have not had occasion to see or hear from him in some time. Is he well?”

“Well enough. He is looking forward to once again making your acquaintance. But on to business, my lady.”

Penelope was hardly prepared to move on to whatever business Mr. Swift thought they might have had; particularly since she wasn’t sure where Mowbray was. She didn’t dare warn this man about the plan to murder the minister where her watchdog could hear her. “And what business do you imagine that to be, Mr. Swift?”

Embarrassment lit Atherton’s face, and he nearly stepped on her foot. Nevertheless, he bit out, “Minister Deschamps has expressed an interest in an…acquaintance with you, Baronesa.

The immediate, instinctive response—“Absolutely not, no, never”—died on Penelope’s tongue. She was still wrestling with how to subtly warn Mr. Swift that she was meant to murder the minister, when Mr. Swift glanced over her shoulder and then back to her.

“We are about to be interrupted,” he whispered. “I shall arrange the introduction for you shortly.” He gently squeezed her hand, glanced over her shoulder again, and gave her a quick smile. “He said to tell you, ‘hold tight, Pen,’” Atherton whispered in her ear as the ambiance of the dance floor shifted.

Abruptly, Mowbray was looming over Mr. Swift’s shoulder, face carefully blank. “If I may,” he began, before confusion crossed his face. He took Atherton by the shoulder, and held him at arm’s length, studying his face.

“Sir, it is hardly right for two gentlemen to take to the floor when there are ladies who are obliged to sit out for want of a partner.” Atherton’s attempt at humor moved Mowbray not an inch.

“Baron, you are causing a scene,” Penelope tried, only to be met by a raised hand rebuffing her and ordering her silence. 

“Have we met?” Mowbray asked Atherton. “Your face seems familiar.”

“We have yet to be formally introduced, but I would say we have, indeed, met.” Atherton pointedly shrugged the hand from his shoulder. Bowing to Penelope, he said, “I shall find you shortly for that introduction, Baronesa,” and turned on the ball of his foot to leave them on the dance floor.

The music played on, and Penelope and Mowbray had either to leave the floor in disgrace, which would pull a dangerous amount of attention to them, or continue the dance. Penelope was shocked to find that Mowbray’s arms trembled as they fell around her and he led her through the clearly familiar steps of the dance. For the first time since she was a child learning her first dance steps, Penelope watched her feet instead of her partner’s face. The phantom swish and crack of her dancing master’s cane across her shoulders nearly brought her chin back up, but it seemed easier to watch her feet than have to make eye contact with Mowbray.

“I don’t like this,” Mowbray finally said, softly. “It feels as though every eye is on us.”

“We were not precisely subtle in our entrance to the party,” said Penelope. “Neither were you subtle about interrupting my dance with another gentleman. I would be far more shocked if everyone weren’t watching with baited breath to see what social faux pas we commit next.”        

That drew a genuine chuckle from Mowbray that he attempted—poorly—to cover with a cough. “I did not mean the eyes of the guests,” he said. “I expected those. This feels almost like…when a teacher or mentor is watching you during an examination and you’ve missed something critical.”

“Are you asking me if you’ve missed something or telling me you’ve missed something? Because I do not hesitate to tell you that you’ve missed the mark in terms of behaving with anything approaching normalcy.”

“You didn’t have nearly this much mouth on you before,” Mowbray said. “The Spanish air has done you no favors.”

“I should think the forced marriage, kidnapping, withholding of food and general neglect did more than the Spanish air,” snapped Penelope.

Mowbray had the grace to look chagrined. “I did not—that is, I would not have—” He stopped, looking troubled, then found his way back to a more comfortable emotion: jealous anger. “Did you at least learn anything, dancing with that man?” Mowbray’s grip on Penelope tightened uncomfortably. “What introduction did he mean?”

Penelope thanked her lucky stars that the music ended then, and didn’t answer as Mowbray released her to bow while she politely curtsied.

She had lost count of the number of balls she had attended since her debut in 1810, and including her disastrous engagement ball, she couldn’t remember a single one that had felt more turbulent than this one. Mr. Swift was in the wings, and she wasn’t sure if he was hindering or helping. Colin was…somewhere…and she was trying not to let her sense of him distract her. Mowbray was perhaps even more dangerous now than he’d been at the grand promenade because he was conflicted and uncertain of his own desires and actions. Whether or not she seduced the minister, Mowbray would find it in himself to be displeased. What Colin would think she didn’t want to imagine.

“No matter what we do, we cannot succeed on this hunt,” warned her owl, mantling in Penelope’s head.

The sound of metal tinkling on cut crystal filled the space, and quiet fell across the crowd as everyone turned to face the cherubic, gaudily dressed, redheaded and red-faced gentleman who was standing somewhat chaotically on a crate at the opposite end of the dance floor. Beside the man on the crate stood Atherton Swift, one hand holding a half-full glass of the punch and a gilded knife and the other lifted as though to steady the man on the crate and prevent him from falling. He certainly looked well into his cups, despite the earliness of the evening. The touch of a slur as he spoke confirmed that he was, in fact, already drunk.

“My friends, my friends, welcome!” he cried, arms thrown wide. “My deepest thanks for attending this celebration of friendship, even in the midst of conflict. Among our renowned guests this evening we have ministers from both the French and Spanish governments and members of the beau monde, and of course we are all kept safe by dedicated French soldiers.” A smattering of polite applause rose, along with more than a few sidelong glances from members of one nation to the other. Trust was not the primary feeling in the room, although freely flowing drinks had certainly extinguished any open hostility.

“I,” the man on the crate continued, “am Jean-Pierre Deschamps, Minister of Shifter Affairs for Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and it is my great pleasure to be your host for this evening of conviviality. So please, one and all, eat, drink, dance, and find the merriment of life in this evening.” Deschamps reached down for the glass Atherton was holding and swept it vivaciously upwards through the air, sending sparkling red droplets whirling through the flickering light to spatter across the dry ground. “Santé!” He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, then amid a chorus of “À la vôtre,” he hopped off the crate, stumbling a few steps.

“Well,” said Mowbray in a voice so low that Penelope felt more than heard it rumble in his chest, “I suppose that makes identifying the minister a fair sight easier.” He sounded distinctly displeased about this. “Drunken, shifter-soft sot.”

“Shifter-soft is rich, coming from him,” opined Penelope’s owl.

“I don’t know that reminding him of that would be useful just now,” Penelope replied, half distracted by Mr. Swift walking toward them.

He bowed politely and extended an arm to Penelope. “Baronesa, if you would accompany me?”

“We shall both accompany you,” Mowbray said, threading Penelope’s arm through his to prevent her from taking Atherton’s arm.

“With all due respect, sir,” began Atherton.

Mowbray cut him off. “Surely you do not mean to capitalize on my wife’s attention this evening?”

“Not I, no. The minister has expressed an interest in an acquaintance with the Baronesa and it is my duty and pleasure to facilitate an introduction. Surely, Barón, you cannot object to such an advantageous acquaintance?”

Both men had mastered the subtle art of looming without changing their physicality or invading the other man’s space. Their presences swelled, sucking the air out of an open field. Penelope would have admired that feat, were she not well and truly tired of men posturing at each other rather than simply getting things done.

Yanking her arm free of Mowbray, Penelope stepped decisively around Mr. Swift and marched—“You’re stomping again,” advised her owl, in a tone smug with joy—toward the red hair she could just barely see on the edge of the dance floor.

“What are you planning to do?” asked her owl.

“Wing it,” Penelope replied shortly.

When she reached the minister, she drew herself up and stood tall before him until he somewhat blearily focused on her. Despite her palms going clammy and nausea roiling through her stomach at the breach of protocol and how forward she was acting, Penelope kept waiting, still standing tall. The minister looked confused, but interested, as she gave him the kind of slow once-over that men had given her all too often in her first season. Just before the minister could raise his eyebrow and lose interest, Penelope swept a curtsy that, while arguably more energetic than graceful, nevertheless sent her skirts and hair sweeping in a way that nobody could help noticing. She held it for a count of three, and then rose without being bidden.

“Minister.” She attempted the low purr that she had heard from certain young women married to men too old to attend balls and widows of such men, but…

“What on earth are you doing with your voice?” snapped her owl. “You sound like you have consumption.” She had no idea what else she was going to do, but a dance seemed like a logical first step.

“Not helping,” Penelope snapped back. “I need to focus if I’m going to…to manage a drunk man during a dance.”

“He isn’t drunk,” said her owl. “He doesn’t smell like it.”

“And who have we here?” asked the minister, extending a hand to Penelope.

They were standing close enough to each other that, had the minister truly been as drunk as his slurred words and red face—which had suspiciously clear boundaries rather than the typical diffuse redness of a man in his cups; was he rouged?—suggested, Penelope should be entirely overwhelmed with the scent of alcohol. Instead, she smelled lemonade, with just a hint of something earthy, like when the maids prepared her mama’s rouge. Carmine?

“Baronesa Ortega, my lord.” And quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she added, “I have no partner for the next dance. Surely you would not leave me to stand disconsolately on the sidelines?”

“To do so would the height—the absolute height!—of ungentlmanliness. I should never dream of allowing a lady who wishes to dance to remain unpartnered. You shall see, my lady, the most elegant leg as we attend the dance floor, the most graceful—”

“My lord?” Penelope interrupted, utterly shocked at her own forwardness. She had spent so much time patiently waiting for gentlemen to stop talking, that she found herself entirely without patience for it in the here and now.

“My lady?”

“Do be quiet and lead.” Then she took his hand and dragged him onto the dance floor, just before Mowbray and Atherton could stop her.

Back leading was not a skill young ladies were taught by their dancing masters, nor was it a skill that young gentlemen particularly approved of. Young ladies who back led too forcefully were often shunned as partners at balls, and nobody in society had forgotten the previous year, when the very young Lord Sommersby—a lad who ought still to have been in leading strings, except that his father had succumbed to an illness some months before—had thrown a tantrum in the middle of the dance floor when his partner had back led to avoid a collision with another couple. That particular party had been such a disaster that the Sommersbys had yet to show their face in society this year. But despite the prevalent dislike of back leading and the lack of teachers, Penelope did not know a single young lady who didn’t know how to do it. Some of them learned it from their mamas, some from their friends, and some picked it up as a means of self-defense. Penelope had been quietly taught by Violet Bridgerton, who had recognized in Eloise a penchant for back leading and a decided lack of subtlety, and so had taught both girls how to do it without causing a fuss.

Penelope did her teacher no justice on this dance floor. She back led without the slightest subtlety as the minister slouched and stumbled his way through the dance, although he never once stepped on Penelope’s feet. After the third time he missed stepping on her toes with near-military precision, Penelope stopped worrying about whether he was drunk and began worrying about why he was pretending to be drunk.

The problem was that she simply didn’t feel safe asking the minister, either directly or obliquely. Every time she turned she caught Mowbray out of the corner of her eye, threat in every line of his posture and the scowl just barely curling the corner of his mouth. It couldn’t have been clearer that Mowbray wanted her as far from the minister as possible, but it was, theoretically, her job to seduce the man.

Which she supposed she had better get to doing. It wasn’t as if she was spoiled for choices just now.

“Are…” she faltered. The she swallowed hard, forced her chin up, and looked the minister in the eyes as she tried again. “Are you enjoying the party?” she asked. It was an utterly poor attempt at flirtation, but she supposed she was better off starting somewhere than dancing in awkward silence.

“Ah, chérie,” said the minister. “What is more tragic than for a lonely man to be surrounded by the most glittering circles of the beau monde and yet to be isolated—alone in the world? Bereft of companionship in a sea of mere acquaintances?”

There was an opening—an invitation, really—that not even Penelope could miss. “A very tragedy indeed, my lord. But surely a gentleman as important as yourself would have no trouble finding companionship?”

“In a sea of politics swim sharks, and sometimes those sharks wear the finest fashions. It can be difficult to know who to trust.” 

The dagger tucked snugly up against her sternum suddenly seemed to burn, and sent a blush across her chest and cheeks that Penelope had no way to hide. “And how might someone who also wished for companionship earn that trust from you—” she reached for a name she’d heard once across a ballroom, praying she remembered correctly— “Jean-Pierre?” She attempted to put the purr she’d heard from other debutantes in her voice again (hopefully avoiding sounding like a consumptive on this attempt) and slid her hand from his shoulder to his chest. The clumsy attempt at increased intimacy made her want to fall through the dance floor into a deep hole in the ground and simply never come back up. She was sure she looked as awkward as she felt, and since the man wasn’t actually drunk, he had no real reason to be charmed by her.

So when he slurred a chuckle and tensed the muscles in his arm and shoulder to make it look like he was clinching her tighter to him, she realized that more than one game was afoot.

I am, she thought, so very tired of spies and politics. A sharp pang filled her chest; she missed slipping off to the side of the ballroom back home to chat with Colin.

“A very even way,” the minister replied. “Are you such a friend?”

And then the hand at the small of Penelope’s back slid south.

Surely, a proper spy wouldn’t have started like a debutante at her first ball; a proper spy would have giggled, batted her eyes, and leaned in. A proper spy would have thought before shoving the hand still on the minister’s chest so hard that he stumbled in truth back from her and then elbowing her way off the dance floor with no care for the dancers around her. The indignant shriek and muffled thump behind Penelope suggested that at least one fine lady landed on the ground on her rear. Not that Penelope cared about ruffling feathers at this point. She had reached her breaking point with being handled and ill-used by men on—and off—dance floors. She was simply allowing her feet and her instincts to take her away from here, to somewhere private enough for her to shift and flee; damn the consequences.

Everywhere she turned, there were people. The ring of soldiers hemmed her into the party. The dimly lit pavilions were, every one, filled with people at various stages of assignations. As were the spaces behind the pavilions. In the open air in a field in Spain, she felt walls closing in on her. She couldn’t catch her breath. A hand closed around her wrist.

And the night exploded into feathers, claws, and the call of a barn owl.

Chapter Text

1813 – Spain

Colin had not expected committing treason to be quite this dull, or involve such an uncomfortable, ill-fitting pair of boots.

He stood in the line of French soldiers, at the farthest possible point from the entrance to the party. Wearing a borrowed uniform, a shako covering his hair, carrying (an unloaded) musket (with the flint removed from the mechanism) fixed with a (dulled) bayonet, and with his back to the party, Atherton and the minister were confident that not even Mowbray would note him and scupper their plan. He shifted his weight, trying to relieve the pinching in his borrowed boots. Colin was no soldier, and he knew it, but this had been the only compromise to allow him to be near enough to the party to do Pen any good. His other option had been to wait at a secondary location, from where he would be useless if anything happened quickly.

Ultimately, donning the buff breeches, light blue coat, and entirely too-small boots that somehow also ballooned out almost comically around his calves and standing in line with his back to the party had been the best choice. He had trooped out with the other men before sunset and stood with them—in interminable boredom—as the sun set and the partygoers began to arrive and the familiar sounds of the ton fêting began to fill his ears as he stared into the darkness beyond the ring of golden light cast by the lanterns and torches. The social part of Colin ached to turn around and join the throng—to dance, to drink, to talk—but he held his position, waiting. Straining with the still-novel part of his mind that connected him to Pen.

He knew the moment she arrived. Guessed that she was accompanied by Mowbray, given how turbulent the sense of her was in his head. Nearly pivoted on his heel several times in the evening when her anxiety grew so great that he could feel his own heart thunder in his chest. However, he and Atherton had gone over why Colin showing his face would be a poor idea time and time again in the intervening week:

“Mowbray is an operative walking into a mission. He will be wary and watching from the word go,” Atherton said, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “If he sees a face he knows from England and one that is intimately connected to Miss Featherington, the smart thing to do would be to disappear. We cannot stop him if he chooses to leave. And if he leaves, he will take Miss Featherington with him and very likely end her life. I know more about the man now than I did last year, Colin. Whatever feelings he may have held—or even may still hold—for your Miss Featherington, the man has never hesitated on a mission. He hunted down a former friend and dragged him back to England to be executed as a shifter and a traitor.”

“All the more reason for me to be at the party,” exclaimed Colin. “I can spirit Pen away when he’s not looking, she’ll be safe.”

“For the moment, she might be safe, Colin. But then Mowbray will, once again, do the smart thing and simply leave the party. Which would then leave him free to hunt you both down at his leisure. And who knows who many other shifters he will be free to murder and abuse in the course of that hunt?”

Colin paced Atherton’s small sitting room in the Minister’s house, wrestling with his feelings. A part of him—one larger than he cared to admit—truly did not care, in that moment, what the consequences to anyone but Pen would be if he simply appeared out of the crowd at the party, scooped Pen up, and ran as far and as fast as he could. She would be safe, and he could stop living in terror that somehow he would be too late. That she would be gone before he saw her again.

It could not be denied, however, that another part of him—one that had sprung into being when Atherton revealed himself to save their party’s lives a year ago in Salamanca—understood and supported the logic of working to do the greatest good for the shifter community as a whole. That this would also benefit Pen in the long run was not a fact that Colin was unaware of, but the moral force of the argument for the greater good was inescapable. And it was one that Colin, when he wasn’t spiraling into panic for Pen, agreed with wholeheartedly.

Atherton, good friend that he was, didn’t say “I told you” when he saw the change in Colin’s face. He merely clapped the other man on the shoulder, saying, “We’ll get her back, Colin. And we’ll deal a blow to an evil in the world as we do.”

They had had some version of that conversation at least once a day for nearly a week. Replaying it in his head helped Colin stay put, stick to the plan, despite the rising anxiety, fear, and fury from his sense of Pen in his mind.

Until the panicked cry of a barn owl split the air.

The musket thudded to the ground, the men on either side of him exclaiming in French in a tone that suggested they expected it to go off. Colin ignored them. He also ignored the exclamations of the lords and ladies he shouldered roughly past to get to Pen. He had seen this little drama play out too many times, from Miss Euphemia’s presentation to James’s death at the grand promenade—and for Penelope of all people to have lost control and shifted in the middle of a party…

He had not come all this way just to lose her.

When hands grabbed his shoulders, arresting his motion, Colin turned with the intention of swinging at whoever was preventing him from getting to Pen. He barely managed to pull the blow when he registered Atherton’s face, and the other man would likely still have a bruise in the morning.

“Get ahold of yourself,” Atherton hissed in Colin’s face. “Look around. This is not England. Look.”

Couples were still sweeping about the dance floor. The band played on. Nobody had recoiled in horror, there was no mad scramble to clear a space. Overhead, Penelope—in owl form—circled, either calming herself or observing, Colin wasn’t sure. The only people who seemed interested in her at all were the minister, who had both hands raised beseechingly and was calling gently in French, and Mowbray, who was all the more alarming to Colin because of how calm and still he was. His eyes were locked on the circling owl overhead, but he wasn’t immediately moving to apprehend and murder. In fact, he had stepped back, leaned against the edge of a table, and loosely crossed his arms. His intent was clearly just to watch and wait, although the hand he slid into his jacket and left there made acid bubble in Colin’s stomach.

“This is a dangerous moment,” Atherton said softly, for Colin’s ears alone. “The smart thing would be for your Penelope to fly away, and if she does that, we lose everything. Can you do anything to coax her down to the minister? Anything at all? Ideally without revealing yourself to Mowbray?”

Colin watched for a long moment as Penelope’s circles became erratic, stretching farther and farther out into the darkness before returning to the light from the party. She was working up the courage to run. “Hardly a simple request, Atherton,” Colin muttered as he tried to calm and focus his thoughts on the sense of Penelope in his mind. She had tamped down her fear behind something that felt analytical.

“Pen?”  He tried to project the thought across their connection, focusing on the sense of her. He got no response, and the circling owl disappeared into the darkness for long enough that panic curled low in Colin’s belly. If she left, how would he find her again? “Stay” wasn’t a conscious thought that Colin tried to send her; it was quite simply the core of his being, his greatest desire, the focal point of his consciousness. He stared into that dark Spanish night, straining to see if Pen would come back to him.

“There,” breathed Atherton, “above the minister.”

Like a glowing ghost rimmed in fire, Penelope descended toward the minister. The crème of her belly feathers glowed, and the torches behind her made the ruddy ring around her face flame, and the light bouncing off the feathers of her wings and back gave her a dramatic backdrop as she delicately landed on the minister’s shoulder. Colin noted that she carefully curled her talons around the epaulette, rather than digging them into the man’s flesh, a courtesy she had not extended to Mowbray the last time she had shifted in public.

The minister gently lifted a hand to politely stroke the feathers down Penelope’s back, speaking quietly to her for a moment, before announcing, “We shall retire to my pavilion. La Baronesa must rest her nerves after such an upset.”

The slurring and mixing of three languages was a convincing cover, Colin had to admit. He knew the minister was made up and faking, but that hadn’t stopped a wave of jealousy when he had touched Penelope. None of the party guests seemed to suspect; in fact, the sudden susurration of gossip that filled the party field as the minister walked away suggested that not only had this happened before, it was a common occurrence. A few gentlemen clapped Mowbray on the shoulder in apparent sympathy, as though having one’s wife seduced by the minister at a party was unpleasant but barely worth otherwise remarking upon. Mowbray exchanged brief but convivial words with the gentleman, appearing for all the world relaxed and unworried by the events that had just transpired. The only tell that he was anything less than amiable was the tension just at the corners of his eyes.

Motion in his peripheral vision pulled Colin’s head toward the minister’s pavilion. A violinist had taken a chair in the pavilion, and servants were unrolling and securing opaque curtains behind the sheer ones. The minister had transferred Penelope—still in her owl form—from his shoulder to his forearm, and was seated on the long, broad ottoman that took up most of the floor of the pavilion. It could have sat six, if they didn’t mind becoming well-acquainted, and was covered in luscious throws and plump pillows. The final opaque curtain fell, obscuring his view of Pen as the servants took discreet posts at the corners of the pavilion.  

A series of rapid but gentle slaps on Colin’s shoulder pulled his attention back to Atherton, who had gone wide-eyed.

“Go, go go,” muttered Atherton, slinging an arm over Colin’s shoulders and bodily guiding him back into the crowd at the party. “It’s a miracle he hasn’t seen you already. And for God’s sake, slouch a little, would you? Anyone who knows you knows how you carry yourself, and Mowbray knows you.”

Colin awkwardly tried to let his shoulders round and slump forward and reached up to take off the shako. Atherton hissed, “Leave it. He won’t be looking for soldiers, so with the shako on, he might see you, but he shouldn’t recognize you.”

The pair wove as casually through the party as they could, moving behind clumps of people and from shadow to shadow, until they had wound their way around almost back to the minister’s pavilion. The line of French soldiers was thinner here, with nearly five feet of space between each man. They also wore dark blue jackets that blended smoothly into the night and carried rifles rather than muskets.

“Riflemen,” whispered Atherton. “All experienced with protecting the minister and dealing with shifter agents.”

“Shouldn’t they be where they can deal with Mowbray?”

“Mowbray and Cole never send just one team, Colin. Cole is also nobody’s fool. Everyone at the party can see that something is odd with the Barón and Baronesa, which means the old bastard is likely to be on the second team himself.”

“You never told me there would be a second team!” Colin started to pivot, but Atherton gripped his arm.

“Where are you going?”

“If both Mowbray and Cole are here, I’m not leaving her alone with the minister. I’m sure he’s a fine gentleman and I know he’s only pretending to be drunk, but I’m sorry, Atherton, I don’t trust him alone with Pen’s safety.”

“You have got to stop trying to rush heroically in!” Atherton’s calm finally cracked, and he flushed red, tightening his grasp on Colin’s arm. “There is more at stake here than just you and Miss Featherington, something I have spent a week trying to impress upon you. I will not let you go off half-cocked and ruin this chance to—”

A hiss in the darkness interrupted Atherton, followed immediately by the sound of rifles being cocked and fitted to shoulders. Atherton pulled Colin back and down, behind a small table. They peered around either side of it, into the darkness, just in time to see a pair of glowing golden eyes appear. They slid forward slowly, revealing a wild cat of a sort Colin didn’t recognize. It was tawny with dark spots, ears that both curled and pointed, and facial fur that resembled sideburns in addition to the usual feline whiskers. It was also favoring one paw, as if hurt. One of the riflemen lowered his gun and dropped to a crouch, shuffling forward toward the cat.

“No, you fool,” breathed Atherton. “Back off…”

When the rifleman was in arm’s reach of the cat, its expression changed. On a human, Colin would have called it a cruel smile. Then the cat leaped on the man, claws and teeth rending wool and—from the sound of the muffled curses—skin. Not a single shot was fired; the chances of killing their fellow soldier were too great. Man and cat peeled off into the night, followed by the rest of the riflemen who were tossing clods of dirt and grass to try to dislodge the cat without unduly harming their fellow. Before long, they were out of sight.

“We should help—” tried Colin, but Atherton slapped a hand over his mouth and pointed. A figure dressed all in black slipped toward the back of the pavilion, to meet a blonde man who stepped out of the circle of party lights.

“This has to be quick,” said Mowbray. “She’s with the minister now. I told you I could get this mission done; you didn’t have to check in on me like I’m a raw recruit of barely 18.”

“Harlow. I was watching, I know she shifted. You know what that means,” said Cole.

Colin’s heart stopped in his chest.

“Colonel—”

“She’s dead, Harlowe. She can’t be trusted, so she doesn’t walk out of that pavilion alive.”

Atherton kept his grip on Colin’s arm and also grabbed his shoulder, bearing down on Colin with his weight. If it truly came to it, Atherton couldn’t stop Colin from doing something stupid, but he was going to try. 

“John.” Mowbray’s voice didn’t break, didn’t so much as shake. But the plea in his tone was all too real. “You made me marry her.”

“And everyone in the room understood that for the legal fiction it is. This is not an impediment to your duty. If anything, it makes it significantly more imperative for you to be the one to end her. You cannot allow trivial, passing sentiment to make you weak. She’s a shifter who cannot be made to be useful, which means she must be exterminated. I know you know this.”

Silence met Cole’s exhortation. Cole did not permit it to stretch. “This is where you go and carry out every part of the mission, Lord Mowbray.” His tone was noticeably colder. “Now.”

“We should at least do it back at camp,” Mowbray tried. “Leaving an extra body here will only arouse sus—”

“You do it here and now.” Cole stepped closer to Mowbray, scruffing the back of his neck like a misbehaving boy or puppy and giving him a short, sharp shake. “If I have to do it, I promise you two things. One, it will be slow and it will be painful and you will watch every last moment. Two, you’ll be finished with me and as Lord Provost Marshal. I will put you in irons myself, Harlowe, and drag you back to the Prince Regent and Her Majesty the Queen for dereliction of duty and aiding and abetting a traitor. Do you understand?” The last question was muted in volume, but the tone held the bark of an angry drill sergeant.

“Yes, sir.” Mowbray’s voice cracked.

Cole released his partner and protégé. “Take five minutes. Collect yourself. Then get in there—” he pointed at the pavilion— “and finish the job. I’ll be watching. So will Josephine.” Those glowing golden eyes appeared from the shadows once again, as if in agreement. “Get it done, Mowbray.” Cole melted back into the darkness, just a moment before the riflemen came trooping back, supporting two of their number who were visibly bleeding, and one of whom couldn’t put weight on one leg.

“Extend the infantry line,” snapped one who seemed to be in charge. We can’t leave the minister without cover.” One lanky man ran off to start the slow process or rearranging the line, while the others moved off, leaving the back of the pavilion more or less completely unguarded. Atherton swore expansively under his breath, but kept his grip on Colin—who was trembling in rage and terror for Penelope—because Mowbray was still standing just beyond the light cast by the party. 

Breathing deeply and artificially slowly, Mowbray reached into his jacket, pulling out a long, slender knife. Turning it over in hands that trembled, he dropped it and crouched to pick it up. Except he didn’t rise from that crouch, and rather than immediately reach for the knife, he clasped his own head. For nearly two minutes he didn’t move, didn’t make a sound except for strictly regimented breathing that slowly went ragged and harsh.

It didn’t make him think any better of the man before him, but somewhere in the back of his heart, Colin softened just a little. The Mowbray crouched in the grass before him had walked so far down a road that there was no turning back from the atrocities he had and would continue to commit. But somewhere back along that road was a young man who had had the opportunity to make a different choice. That lad, the one who hadn’t killed anyone and who could have, in a different world, done so much good, deserved compassion, even if the man before Colin did not.

A gentle tug on Colin’s shoulder ended the silent vigil. Atherton gestured, and they carefully and quietly backed off, moving toward the crush of party guests and light. Once there was no chance Mowbray would be able to see them, Colin began a purposive beeline toward the minister’s pavilion, only for Atherton to grab him by the arm again.

“What—”

“You’ll draw undue attention. Go slowly and casually. We’ll still get there first.”

Audibly grinding his teeth, Colin held himself to Atherton’s positively glacial pace as he walked toward Pen.